Breakfast w/Greg: Everyone is talking about this weekend’s National Equality March including, unfortunately, Barney Frank

Good morning.

I don’t know about you, but I have more respect for Barney Rubble right now than I have for Rep. Barney Frank.

The powerful and openly gay member of the US House of Representatives has decided that instead of being supportive or just keeping his big mouth shut, he would blast the National Equality March scheduled for Sunday before it even takes place!

Reports Michaelangelo Signorele on his site The Gist: Barney Frank believes the march this weekend and rally on the mall are “useless” and don’t put pressure on the White House. “I literally don’t understand how this will do anything,” he said. “People are kidding themselves. I don’t want people patting themselves on the back for doing something that is useless.” Besides, he says, “Barack Obama does not need pressure.” He says we should model ourselves as lobbyists on “the National Rifle Association.”

He says people should not come to Washington and should stay home and lobby their members of Congress. “Nobody in Congress even knows they’re there, he says, and he is not attending the March: He is going to California to raise money for himself and other Democrats.

Barney speaks his mind that’s for sure. But I have lost a great deal of respect for him for dismissing activists and citizens who are not willing to wait anymore to be treated equally under the law. I think Mr. Frank is dead wrong: President Obama and the Congress do need the pressure because otherwise, they will do nothing.

Cleve Jones, one of the organizers of the National Equality March, appeared on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show last night and said: “I believe that President Obama wants to do the right thing but I believe that he , like most politicians, needs a little prodding. We’re marching this weekend to show that we want action. … We are equal and it’s time we stop accepting compromises and delays.”

In the lead-up to the interview, there was a piece that laid out the campaign promises Obama made while aggressively courting the LGBT vote: putting an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act; passage of a federal Hates Crimes Bill, passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The hate crimes bill was passed by the House Thursday and now must be approved by the Senate. It’s a bill that now includes transgender individuals – among those who need a law like this the most – but a group that Rep. Frank was quite willing to sacrifice in order to try and get the legislation passed last time around.

I’m a lot more comfortable with someone like Cleve Jones speaking out for my rights than Barney Frank at this point.

Here is video from last night’s Anderson Cooper 360: