Former congressman Barney Frank addressed students in Cahn Auditorium Tuesday night as the College Democrats' fall speaker. The discussion was moderated by Larry Stuelpnagel, a Northwestern professor with dual appointments in the Department of Political Science and Medill.
Frank is known for serving 16 terms as a democratic representative for Massachusetts and for being the first openly gay member of Congress.
The night opened with Stuelpangel asking Frank about his childhood, financial reform following the recession in 2008 and how Frank's political views were shaped.
Describing his childhood as “pretty normal,” Frank discussed growing up in Bayonne, N.J. As one of four children, Frank attended public school while his father ran a successful business at a truck stop. Frank also touched on grappling with his sexuality.
“At the age of 13, I realized I was gay, but I compartmentalized it,” Frank said. “I wanted to get into politics but I had two problems: being gay and being Jewish.”
Sharing what it was like growing up as a Jewish person in post-World War II America, Frank offered that anti-Semitism began to decline as a reaction to Hitler, although he found it to be alive and well shortly after the war ended.
As he progressed through public school and especially when he entered college, Frank began to think about how closely involved he could get with politics. Curious as to how his political leanings were initially shaped, Stuelpnagel asked Frank about his influences, and he cited Hubert Humphrey for his advocacy of free speech.
“If you want to look at pictures of naked people, that's fine,” Frank said.
While Frank mixed a few jabs and rather off-the-cuff remarks into his speech, most were directed at explicitly detailing his political feelings. When he described what it was like growing up gay in the 1950s, Frank didn't hold back.
“Back then, I believe the technical term for them is 'morons,' those people who believed that people chose to be gay,” Frank said. “Today, if any gay rights legislation were to get passed it would take at minimum a democratic president, and a Democratically-controlled House and Senate. We were able to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in 2010 under those circumstances.”
Audience members had the chance to ask the congressman open questions at the end of the session. Frank touched on gerrymandering, what it was like serving as Chairman of the House Financial Committee, education and terrorism.
What Frank spent a fair amount of time emphasizing was the lack of bipartisanship in the nation's capital. Citing the election of President Barack Obama as “the day bipartisanship died,” Frank argued that it was more than just political parties that have impacted the way Americans view political issues.
“Liberals watch MSNBC, conservatives watch Fox News and both sides think they're right because they don't see anyone disagreeing with them,” Frank said.
In closing, Frank vouched for cuts in military spending but increases in public university and community college funding.
The basis of his argument for increased educational funding was purely economic: Community colleges can be gateways for the lower and middle classes to enter sectors of the economy that “can't be outsourced.”
“Community colleges are great for nursing,” Frank said. “You can't stick a needle in somebody's butt from Mumbai.”