Blacks and Gays in Conflict: An Interview with U.S. Representative Barney Frank

The following article was published in the book "Dangerous Liaisons: Blacks, Gays, and the Struggle for Equality." The book was published in 1999 and edited by Eric Brandt.

A few years ago when I was researching my first book, I stumbled across a piece of information that challenged a widely held belief about blacks and gays. While browsing through the main reading room of the Library of Congress, I came across a public opinion poll about gays in the military. The survey, conducted by Gallup in April 1993, found that 61 percent of blacks favored lifting the ban on gays in the military while only 42 percent of whites responded the same way.

Because the plan to lift the ban was so closely connected with President Clinton, I thought the racial discrepancy might have been explained by the black community's strong support for Clinton in the 1992 election. But when the respondents were asked about other gay issues not associated with the Clinton Administration, the racial divergence remained. For example, 85 percent of blacks felt that "homosexuals should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities," as compared to 79 percent of whites. On virtually every question, blacks were more likely than whites to support civil rights protections for gays and lesbians. Other polls, both before and after Clinton's term began, supported these results. Soon I began to challenge my own assumptions about black support for "gay rights."

Despite a few high-profile exceptions, black leaders have been out front in their support for civil rights protections for gays and lesbians. Civil rights leaders such as Jesse Jackson, Joseph Lowery, and Coretta Scott King have joined with black political leaders such as Kweisi Mfume, Marion Barry, and David Dinkins to support laws that would end sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress have created the world's first constitution that specifically outlaws sexual orientation bias. In our own country, the Congressional Black Caucus has distinguished itself with a strong record of support on gay and lesbian issues. In fact, some black members of Congress, such as Rep. John Lewis, have been the gay community's strongest allies, even fighting to oppose restrictions on same-sex marriage.

Perhaps no one in the mainstream gay community is more familiar with the black community's leadership on these issues than Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, one of two openly gay members of the United States Congress. In that context, I sat down with Rep. Frank to talk about the perceptions and misperceptions of blacks and gays in conflict. As we observe renewed efforts by right-wing ideologues to drive a wedge between blacks and gays, it seems an appropriate occasion to explore the question of black support for gay rights.

Keith Boykin: The first question I would like to start with is what does it mean to be gay in America today. And there are a lot of different definitions and interpretations, but I wonder if you could offer me what you think it means to be gay in America today.

Rep. Frank: It means, obviously different people will give different interpretations, to be the victim of a prejudice which seems to me to be diminishing. And it's an interesting kind of prejudice. It's prejudice which people have been able to duck for a long time externally, but I think people now realize the price of that was pretty severe internally. Gay people, more than any other victim of prejudice, have never liked being gay. Obviously, you could conceal your being gay much more easily than you could conceal your gender or your race and also a more easily in fact than you could conceal your religion, although I suppose if you really want to conceal your religion it might be even easier. But today what it means is, I think, to be grappling, for a lot of people, with how much of a choice to make to confront the prejudice. Obviously, what's happening is that people have been moving from hiding the fact that they're gay - 30 years ago there was a very, very small nu! mber of gay men and lesbians who would acknowledge their sexual orientation -- to the point now where I think the majority have told, at least some straight people.

Keith Boykin: You think the majority of gay people have told (someone)?

Rep. Frank: At least some straight people, yes. It may not be a large number, but it's made a qualitative difference, I think, between, some and none. And I think 30 years ago the tendency was for people to have told no one. So I think that's the dominating factor that it is to be dealing with a prejudice which is diminishing but it's still there and to some extent you have some control over how much of it to expose yourself to. And I think that's the interesting fact that people have to deal with.

Keith Boykin: As a member of Congress, you've been somewhat privileged in your experiences, but how have you been personally affected by homophobia in your lifetime?

Rep. Frank: Well, for the first 40 years or so of my life I wasn't affected by it by other people. The wounds were self-inflicted. That is, I, until I was 40 years old, just didn't want tell anybody - or almost 40, 39. So the damage I felt was internal and psychic. And since then, of course, I didn't really start to tell other people until I was a member of Congress . . . because I had been in kind of an important position and I really told almost no one that I was gay. I think I told a few friends and my siblings in the months before I decided to run for Congress, and since running for Congress is when I really told people, so I hadn't really experienced it a great deal. I suppose there might have been more political options open to me had I not been gay. I might have cast my own political career differently. I might have been thinking earlier of maybe running for Governor or maybe running for a House [of Representatives] leadership position or thinking of! a Cabinet job. One of the things, on the other hand, it's probably a deprivation to be told you can't do the other thing, it may also have helped me because it helped me focus and said, 'hey, you don't have to worry about ambition at this point. All you want to do is stay where you are.' I continued to pay the price until 1987 of not being fully open. I did stupid things. So for me, even after I began to tell other people, the price I paid has been almost exclusively an internal one, first a kind of psychic pain and then doing these stupid things, and trying to resolve a half-in, half-out situation.

Keith Boykin: And do you feel that as a member of Congress or as an influential person in the public domain you have even more of an obligation to do something to come out of the closet?

Rep. Frank: Yes, I do. I think when you can help other people at a relatively low price to yourself you ought to do that. I mean you aren't obligated to commit suicide if someone is drowning and you can't swim, you're not really obligated to jump in. On the other hand, if a small child is floundering in two feet of water, you have absolutely no right to stay out. And for me, it's somewhere in between. I do think for me not to have acknowledged being gay would have been to deny a lot of vulnerable people help they could have gotten.

Keith Boykin: One of the issues I'm getting at is the whole question of the relationship between blacks and gays and those who are part of both groups, and there's a perception that black people are more homophobic than non-black people. Is that your perception?

Rep. Frank: Oh absolutely not. I've spent 23 years as an elected official. I think elected officials are pretty good indicators on the whole of the feelings of the public. This notion that elected officials don't pay attention to public opinion is silly. And of the demographic groups in the United States House of Representatives, none, none comes as close to being pro-gay and lesbian as the Congressional Black Caucus. I think the experience of having lived in a society in which you are discriminated against forges a common bond. The fact is that the Congressional Black Caucus has been, with no close second, the most supportive group for gays and lesbians. Women and Jewish members also much more supportive than the average, but neither group comes close to the Congressional Black Caucus. When a member of the Congressional Black Caucus votes no, it's like really exceptional. So I don't think that group would survive if there was broad homophobia. ! Secondly, the two cities in the United States tied for the most pro-gay are San Francisco and Washington, D.C. In the case of Washington, D.C., you have a very large white male gay population for a variety of reasons, but the majority is still African-American, and if the black population in Washington were homophobic, you wouldn't have this virtual unanimity of support. When you look at Anacostia [a predominantly black-section of Washington, D.C.], Marion Barry, who has always been identified as a very pro-gay candidate, just chews up Wilhemnia Rolark [for a seat on the City Council], who had been the anti-gay candidate. Now he didn't beat her because he was pro-gay, but if in fact, homophobia were as strong here among the African-American population, Marion Barry could not have devastated Wilhemenia Rolark by that kind of margin in a virtually all-black ward.

Keith Boykin: So where does this perception come from?

Rep. Frank: I don't know where. Part of it may be a class thing -- that is that people who are lower in the socioeconomic scale are more explicit in expressing their prejudices. And if you are a gay man, you are more likely given where you live in a big city to come in contact with blacks in that socioeconomic stratum than whites, so it may just be a proximity thing in gentrification. There have probably been more cases of gay men moving into what have been black neighborhoods, but that's just a guess. It may also be partly this -- a few prominent ministers who may be especially outspoken, but in general I think [the assumption about black homophobia is] demonstrably wrong and I haven't heard a lot about it.

Keith Boykin: I've interviewed a number of people, both black gay and lesbian people who've said to me, pretty much that they don't think that white gay and lesbian people understand, particularly white gay men. They just don't understand black lesbian and gay people. And I think there's a great deal of frustration and, in some sense, just a hands off approach, that they just don't really care to deal with the white gay community anymore. What do you think is behind all that?

Rep. Frank: I have no idea. It seems to me quite stupid to use this as a reason not to participate in the organizations that are fighting for gay and lesbian rights. It does not seem to be very sensible to let this become a reason for not participating in the political effort to defeat anti-gay and lesbian prejudice, and in fact it seems to me to play into the hands of the people who are against us. I've heard criticism of organizations where there aren't enough [black people], but well, I know of no organization that hasn't tried actively to bring other people in it. And I just think that criticism is always a stupid one, whether it's women or African Americans or whoever it is that's complaining. You get organizations where people, they act like they want to be there and they decide to do it, and then other people stay out of it. I have no idea why people argue the way they do. And I don't know what it means when they say people don't understand black gay peopl! e. I don't understand what that means.

Keith Boykin: Well part of it is the assertion that there's a great deal of racism still in the gay white community and that people who are gay and white don't seem to think of themselves as having any racism in them because of the fact that they're gay.

Rep. Frank: Well some of them do and some of them don't. It seems to me an equally dumb statement for people to characterize all white people. In fact, certainly if you were going to look in America, the gay and lesbian organizations and the gay and lesbian elected officials are much more likely to be aligned with black elected officials on race matters. The Congressional Black Caucus is very pro-gay, but if you look at the lesbian and gay elected officials, they are overwhelmingly people who've been very supportive of a whole range of issues that black people say are important. So I just think that's a dumb statement with nothing behind it, but I can say I've read some of these things and to some sense they're self-fulfilling prophecies [when people say] 'they don't want me there so I want go.' It seems to me just typical of the tendency of human beings to find reasons to fight with each other for no good reason over small differences.

Keith Boykin: Now the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition and other groups like that have made an effort to drive a wedge between the black community and the gay community, and one of the arguments they make is that the gay community is arguing itself that blacks and gays are the same. Whether it be the struggles or the types of oppression, they're the same. Is that an argument that you believe?

Rep. Frank: Oh, I believe, as I said earlier, there are some elements of being discriminated against that are common, that victims of discrimination have a lot in common. Now obviously blacks have had much more serious economic discrimination, [and] they couldn't have hidden if they wanted to. Gays have been able by hiding to avoid that, so in that sense there's a difference, but in some areas it seems to be quite similar. But for some instances, as for example in the military, the discrimination in the military is very, very similar. The rationale is virtually identical. And actually that is something where I have been disappointed in the vehemence with which [some] blacks have denounced the notion that there are any similarities in the struggles. The answer is that there are some similarities and some differences. I think if you read, for instance, Taylor Branch's book about Martin Luther King and think back to the relationship blacks had with John Kennedy, it'! s very similar to the relationship of gays with Bill Clinton, so there are some similarities and some differences. And I am a little discouraged by the vehemence with which some blacks have said that too. I remember the first time I encountered the argument was in 1973. I filed a gay rights bill in the Massachusetts House and at the first hearing, Royal Bolling, Jr., who was a black state representative, said 'I know what you're talking about because I'm black and it's very similar,' and I was very pleased by that. And people make other comparisons. I mean people compare being Jewish to being a woman to being black, and there are similarities and differences. And I think that's the sensible answer there - some things are the same and some aren't.

Keith Boykin: Well, in terms of the arguments that people use to justify homophobia and racism, are those closer to the same. I mean, you mentioned the military. . . .

Rep. Frank: The argument in the military for segregation in the military and kicking gays out is identical. It is not that these are bad people. In fact, they would be very well-behaved and very capable. But there is a dislike of them among the majority that would make their presence disruptive and therefore they should be excluded. You can take arguments that they used in '48 and the arguments that are used in '93 and I think they are identical.

Keith Boykin: But does that comparison apply anywhere else outside of the military?

Rep. Frank: Yes, I think there are some elements in common. I haven't thought about others, but that was the most recent one we had. Well, obviously it would be in housing discrimination. There is also a common religious element to both. It's not fashionable anymore, but if you go back to the '40s and '50s when the segregation fight was raging, religion was used very often to justify discrimination and segregation, and it's used obviously similarly with gay people.

Keith Boykin: There's also a great deal of concern within some communities about coalition building and the value of coalitions, and particularly with regard to black and gay organizations and communities, and some people just don't see that such coalitions benefit black people or black organizations. What would you say to a black person or a black community or a black organization struggling with the question of whether they should be engaged in a coalition with a gay group or community?

Rep. Frank: You mean a straight black organization?

Keith Boykin: Yes.

Rep. Frank: Fighting discrimination is a moral obligation and that I suppose if you wanted to calculate now in terms of whether it's good or bad for you, it might be good or bad. Aligning yourself with a particular prejudice might help you fight another one. There's no question about that. It might help gay organizations in some parts of the country if they were explicitly racist or stayed away from integration. If you argued purely on self-interest, people argue that with the Jews too. The right-wing people like Irving Kristol have said to Jews, 'what are you hanging out with the blacks for?' Irving Kristol has written articles saying it's time for Jews to break off this alliance with black people and instead to move over to the Christian right because they've got more power in this country and they'll be able to move it better. The answer is, that may or may not be the case, but it seems to me it's a moral obligation to fight for freedom.

In the end, I do think that people make a mistake because, even practically, because I think the arguments against discrimination are common. The arguments for it may be different, but the arguments against it are the same ultimately, which is, it is unfair to judge an individual on anything other than his or her merits. And I think it's very hard to start making arguments to fight discrimination in one case and then allow it in another. But I would hope people wouldn't even make that kind of translation. If that's the case, well then if blacks are told, 'well hey, don't hang out with the gay people because that could be bad for you' and Jews will be saying 'well why don't you stop hanging out with the black people' and then the women's groups will probably be saying, 'well we're the biggest group, why should we be hanging out with any of these minority groups? Let's just head right out.

Keith Boykin: And then eventually everyone splinters off?

Rep. Frank: Yes, I think people have more to gain by coming together. Especially since it may just be statistical. You know, maybe there's no logic to it at all. I think there is some logic to it. It is in fact the case that the most virulent opponents of the agenda that African Americans have and that gay people have and that feminist groups have are all the same people. So the logic may or may not be that great, I think it is, but I think statistically that's the way things work out.

Keith Boykin: Thank you for your time.

Rep. Frank: You're welcome.

© 2001 by Keith Boykin. All Rights Reserved.