Barney Frank Quotes
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I think there was an absolute, deep gap between consensual relations between adults, which people may like or dislike, and people who physically impose themselves on children or misuse their authority to impose on children.
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I had always been interested in politics. I had assumed, for a variety of - well, for two reasons, being Jewish and being gay back in the late '50s, early '60s - that I would never be elected or anything, but I would participate as an activist.
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The regulation of medicine has been a State function.
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And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians.
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Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship.
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For most of my life, I have eaten to deal with stress.
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Well, I don't give it out very often, but I reject the notion that you have to be a practitioner to give good advice.
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But it is also clear that left entirely untouched by public policy, the capitalist system will produce more inequality than is socially healthy or than is necessary for maximum efficiency.
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I have done a lot of work for affordable housing, rental housing. I understand the rap on me and other liberals is, oh, we push poor people into homeownership. And it's exactly the opposite of the case. We were trying to prevent those kinds of bad loans.
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I filed the first gay rights bill in Massachusetts history in 1972 in the legislature, one of the first in the country.
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I'm a good legislator. I'm a bad some other things.
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I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a left-handed gay Jew. I've never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.
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As a liberal, I am morally obligated to be pragmatic. What good do I do poor people, elderly people, people who are being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation if I'm not realistic about accomplishing something.
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Television is apparently the enemy of nuance. But nuance is essential for a thoughtful discussion.
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Now, most of the time I'm going to agree with the Democrats and disagree with the Republicans.
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The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left's on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.
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If people knew of ethics violations, they should have sent them to the Ethics Committee. If you think there was serious ethics violation that ought to be looked at, you don't hold it back for retaliatory purposes.
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When community action was put into federal law in the early sixties as part of the effort to combat poverty and social injustice, I supported it intellectually.
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Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.
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And unless you think there is a serious chance you're going to jail, don't listen to your lawyer.
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The Clinton tax increase - which was an increase in taxes primarily on upper-income people - not only made the tax code more nearly progressive, it preceded one of the most productive economic periods in American life.
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Most people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear.
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Let us not say that we will decide on a political basis at the national level that no State is competent to regulate the practice of medicine in that State if they decide to allow a doctor to prescribe marijuana, because that is what we are talking about.
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Moderate Republicans are reverse Houdinis. They tie themselves up in knots and then tell you they can't do anything because they're tied up in knots.