GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE October 12, 2007

Insurance Companies are now recognizing Domestic Partnerships!

In the past, the gay and lesbian communities have not been given the same rights as married couples. Married couples have enjoyed significant discounts on their health, home and auto insurance premiums while gay and lesbian couples have been excluded from these discounts. If you have been in a relationship and living together for over 6 months it is time for you to review your insurance coverages. Now

is the time to take advantage of these discounts!

For Health and Life quotes Contact Laura at 216-468-2100

For Home and Auto quotes Contact Tom at 216-831-0333

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Continued from page 9

intention to run against Barney or him against me.

So by the time Barney ran, you had pretty much decided ...

I was gone. We had decided that once I got re-elected into my term. And Barney wanted me to stay but I had had it. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I got about four or five hours of sleep [a night]. My phone was ringing constantly from people all over the country who had very frightened voices. There were people all over the country calling and asking if I would come and speak.

They'd say, "Well, you have a responsibility to a bigger constituency." I was pulled in a thousand different ways. It was not going to have a happy ending and I was smart enough to know that.

I thought, "Well, I've done my best. It's time for me to move on to the next step in my own life. I've paid my dues."

Do you think Barney Frank would have been as successful if he had been out from the beginning?

To be honest, Barney would be successful if he were from outer space. He's just one of those rare individuals who had natural leadership ability and so, so bright. He and his sister share an ability to think strategically under fire like no other two people I have met in my life. They're never wrong that way. Not that they don't make mistakes. I think Barney would be successful no matter if he was in the closet or not. He just has that talent.

Boston had a lot of social issues going on at the time, both sexual and racial, especially with the issue of desegregation of the public schools. Did the heightened awareness of civil-rights issues in the city have any impact on your campaign?

I think in the short term, it probably hurt, but it was part of my values system. I was an educator. I asked for an assignment on the education committee at a time where people were leaping off of it and I used a lot of my campaign workers to stand at the bus stops to make sure children got on and off the busses safely.

Members of the gay community and a writer from one of the gay newspapers met with me privately and asked me to drop my stand of desegregation of schools. They threatened me and told me if I didn't do this that they would get another legislator and I suggested that they do just that. It was pretty heavy duty. The gay community can be just as racist as the straight community and, remember, it was Boston in the '70s.

Do you think that LGBT advocates are more or less active than they were in the '70s?

I think that they've gotten more politically sophisticated and have connected the dots seeing that choice and freedom is for everybody or it's for nobody.

What do you think when you see antigay sentiment today, given how much more informed the general public is compared to the '70s?

I think, in a way, we have become stronger as a community nationwide and worldwide. When we become stronger, the opposition feels entitled to step forward.

There is this rigid entitlement that comes with people that think that their view of the world is the only view that one should embrace. It's sort of a Nazi thinking or conservative thinking. I shouldn't equate the two because conservative thinking doesn't mean Nazi thinking. Some people might think it is but I don't.

There are extremes everywhere and when you threaten someone's world—and gay rights threaten a lot of people who are not secure in their own world-there's always a backlash. Just like with the violence that came with people of color saying, "You're not going to do this any more." I think it's the same.

What do you do to keep yourself occupied today?

I'm retired. I'm living in Florida. I go back and forth to Massachusetts. I don't like the winters. I live in a part of Florida where I can have my horses and animals. I live a very engaging and quiet life with my gay and straight community. I'm active in the Democratic Party in Florida.

And what about Massachusetts?

You know, I'm sort of like the grandmother to everybody. When I can help, I'll help. But the best thing I can do just be supporting in the background and raise money.

How do you relate to the activist groups of today?

I think it's great. It's wonderful. The more the merrier. People who have a political agenda will call and say, “Can you help us?" I'm willing to help anyone who's a member of our community. I'm just so excited to watch the progress being made. It's thrilling really.

[When I was elected], the National Gay Task Force was just getting started. Now it's in Minnesota and several different states. That's wonderful. It's the same thing with the Human Rights Campaign. They all seem to complement each other. We all complain and grumble. In the end, I think we have a sophisticated group.

Do you think the political foundation you laid in Massachusetts is one of the reasons it's the only state that legally allows gay marriage?

I can't say that. I think I was just one piece in a conga line that led up to this. People like Joe Berry, who's involved in the bar association, the Partners Group, which is a group of very sophisticated legal minds, and Barney's help contributed greatly.

I think there's a whole necklace of wonderful people in Massachusetts that made their contributions and I'm just one of many. Nothing happens because of one person. It happens with the culmination of a lot of people's work. And they have taken the sting out in the early days of being gay.

When I was in the legislature, many of the representatives and senators would say, "You're the first homosexual I've ever met." I'd say, "That's not true, I'm just the first one that said I was." You know them because they live all around you. They're your neighbors. They live in your family.

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