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444 20 The Gay Washington Monument Barney Frank’s career as a legislator has paralleled the history of the gay rights movement. Barney was elected to the massachusetts state legislature in 1973, three years after a police raid on the Stonewall inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, touched off what became known as the Stonewall riots, an episode that brought the gay community out of the closet and into the streets and marked the beginning of the gay rights movement. Today, Barney is the most prominent openly gay politician in the United States. he has been a pioneer in the fight for fair treatment for gays and lesbians since 1973, when, as a freshman legislator, he introduced the first gay rights legislation in the history of massachusetts—bills to outlaw discrimination against gays in employment and housing and to repeal the sodomy laws. his voluntarily revealing in 1987, as a fourth-term congressman , that he is gay marked a milestone on the road to the acceptance of gays in national politics. Vic Basile has called Barney’s contribution to the gay rights movement “enormous and unparalleled.” Barney has become a hero and a role model for the gay and lesbian community . among his admirers is robert raben, who began his career as Barney’s legislative counsel. “i got to see an openly gay man who was also a respected policy maker, politician, and substantive leader. he could be all of that in a way that really was admirable and for a young person who was thinking of coming out, it was psychologically life saving,” raben said. The actor nathan lane credits Barney with helping to shatter stereotypes about gays. at a meeting of a gay rights organization in the hamptons, lane introduced Barney to the audience and said that he was grateful to Barney, who was responsible for his latest role playing a gay congressman in the short-lived 2003 television series Charlie Lawrence. lane offered to speak to mel Brooks about casting Barney in the role of max Bialystock when The Producers, Brooks’s smash Broadway show, comes to washington. Barney responded, “i’m sorry, but playing a loud, pushy Jew is too much of a stretch for me.” The late rock star Frank Zappa, a c-SPan junkie, The Gay Washington Monument 445 called Barney “one of the most impressive guys in congress” and “a great model for young gay men.” “he has played a tremendous role in advancing the public respectability of gay people not only by his aggressive actions in congress on behalf of gay causes but also when he is talking on television about housing policy, defense, or this or that and gay people see him and he serves as a gay role model that we never had growing up,” hastings wyman, a gay man and one of Barney’s roommates at harvard, said. The gay activist and political strategist david mixner wrote in his memoir Stranger among Friends: “no one understands congress better than Barney Frank. There is no doubt in my mind that he will go down in history as one of the most effective and powerful of all congressional leaders. despite our differences, he is a source of great pride to many of us in the [gay] community.” in an interview published in march 2003, MetroWeekly, a washington, d.c., gay and lesbian magazine, refers to Barney as the “gay washington monument.” in that interview, Barney was asked to comment on his legacy as it relates to the gay community. he was modest in his response: “People have done more for me than i’ve done for them. That’s one of the things about politics. There’s a great disproportion in rewards versus output. an awful lot of people have worked very hard on my behalf and i get to reap much of the reward. So i really feel much more indebted than not. But i do think i was one of those who showed that you could come out and prosper.” in 1996, Bob Barr, a thrice-married, conservative republican from Georgia, introduced a bill titled the defense of marriage act, or doma. The bill established a first-ever federal definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman for purposes of federal spousal benefits under Social Security, medicare, and other federal programs, as well as immigration law. enactment of the bill would prevent gay couples from receiving federal benefits in the event an individual state...

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