Former liberal Rep. Barney Frank used to get flack for avoiding the hand-to-hand combat other gay leaders engaged in on behalf of LGBT rights, and now he’s explaining why.
In his new biography, Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage, he wrote that activists “decried my lack of ‘militancy.’ ” He said they wanted him to copy activists such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and stage protests, die-ins and other publicity stunts.
But the former Boston suburb lawmaker argued for a different model: The National Rifle Association.
Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., left, and Jim Ready pose at their wedding reception Saturday, July 7, 2012. Frank married his longtime partner in a ceremony officiated by Gov. Deval Patrick in Newton, Mass. AP Photo
“When LGBT leaders cited Gandhi and King, I offered my own counterexample — the National Rifle Association’s great success in dominating the policy debates about gun control, despite being in a minority on the issue in every national poll I have seen,” he wrote. “As I enjoyed pointing out, especially to those LGBT activists who decried my lack of ‘militancy,’ I have never seen an NRA public demonstration. They do not have marches. There have been no NRA mock shoot-ins to rival the die-ins staged by AIDS activists.”
Frank praised the gun group’s success in lobbying lawmakers and filling voting booths instead of protesting for success or pouring money into campaign coffers.
“Liberals who try to comfort themselves with the notion that the NRA wins legislative battles because of their vast campaign contributions are engaged in self-deceptive self-justification. The NRA wins at the ballot box, not in the streets and not by checkbook,” he wrote.
He added that the gay community has finally accepted his advice and is getting results “with much greater success.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
