GQ talks to Barney Frank

Openly gay Congressman Barney Frank talked to GQ about the nation’s financial crisis and it is all just fascinating. Here is the more interesting portion of the interview that deals with gay marriage and his thoughts on President Obama:

What is your relationship with the president?
Oh, very good. Because I think he’s very smart and able, and I am in a position where we work closely. He’s got three major domestic objectives: health care, global warming, and financial regulation. And by my committee chairmanship, I’m in one of those. [Points to a picture on the wall of him, Obama, and another guy.]

Nice picture.
That’s my boyfriend on the end.

Oh, is that—his name is Jim?
Yeah.

He’s handsome.
Yeah.

A lot younger than you.
Thirty years.

Do you want to marry him?
I won’t talk about that in public.

Okay, fair enough. But I’m curious how you feel about where gay marriage is right now. Is it disappointing that you now have this young Democratic president, this young black Democratic president, who still won’t come out for—
Not really. Because he’s been so good on everything else. And, uh, I understand the political reality. I was not in favor of his coming out for same-sex marriage when he first got elected. But I would hope he would be by the time he runs for reelection.

You would hope he would be, but you weren’t in favor of him doing so in 2008?
I think it would have given the opposition help they didn’t need.

So do you think Obama doesn’t really feel that there should be same-sex marriage? Or was it just a political—
I don’t know what’s in his heart of hearts. I do know that it was…The general view, which I shared, was that no one who wanted to get elected president could have been a supporter of same-sex marriage. On the other hand, things have moved very far since then, and I’m more optimistic about 2012 than I was about same-sex marriage.

When you look back, some of the things that have happened, like Larry Craig—what did you think when his arrest became public, given what he put you through? [Craig was one of the Republican house members who voted to censure Frank during his scandal in 1989, when a prostitute Frank had dated claimed he had run a sex-for-money business out of Frank’s house.]
Well, I’m just reminded of, uh, what a terrible thing it is to feel you have to hide your sexuality. I did myself for too many years.

Why did you decide to reveal it?
Because I was goin’ nuts not being out. Because I wasn’t able to have a satisfying personal life. In fact, I got involved with a hustler. Well, that was because I…When I came out, it was voluntary. I had no reason to think he was going to do anything, but I just couldn’t live a normal life. There is a view that gay and lesbian people have had historically—I hope they don’t still have it—that “I can’t be honest about my sexuality.” You realize, when we are honest about our sexuality, it’s called coming out; when straight people are honest about their sexuality, it’s called talking. Because everybody talks about their sexuality all the time. But, um, there was this view that “Oh, well, I won’t have a great private life, but I’ll have a career that will make up for it.” In my experience, that just damages your career, because there are emotions and needs that you want to express in your private life, and if you can’t express them in your private life, they’ll poison your public life. So I did it just out of…I was aware it would be good politically for the gay and lesbian community. But the main reason was, I couldn’t live that way anymore. I was tired of not being able to meet guys or having to hide a relationship. I just wanted to end it.

Do you think you’d have survived your scandal today?
I don’t know. Dave Vitter seems to be surviving.

But has it gotten nastier out there?
It has. The media’s gotten more aggressive, and the partisanship has increased. One of the things that happened was Newt Gingrich came to town, and Newt explicitly and specifically said, Look, this is nonsense about we’re friends. We are enemies. He specifically said, It is a mistake to say that the Democrats are honorable people with whom we disagree. They are traitors. They are corrupt. They are immoral. And things clearly deteriorated, didn’t they?