167 Quotes by Barney Frank

I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the Army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

The people who started the American government, the founders of the Constitution, didn't like political parties but they were forced to start them. Nobody ever created political parties in England, they evolved. And there do tend to be two general tendencies that focus around how much government you think you need.

Conservatives believe that from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.

The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.

In a free society a large degree of human activity is none of the government’s business. We should make criminal what’s going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.

Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight.

But the absence of bad motives in no way alleviates the bad effects.

But when others suggested that the poor should not simply be the objects of these programs but also the subjects – that they should be actively involved in shaping the programs, making decisions about how to spend the money etc. – some of the previous supporters reconsidered.