Bush shows love to gay Congressman

I wrote this story today. It made me smile.

It was a moment of affection between two politicians, and in normal circumstances it would pass unnoticed.

But when one is the only out gay man in Congress and the other a President who has revelled in his hostility to gay marriage, their closeness raises eyebrows.

After his final State of the Union address to both Houses of Congress on Monday, President George W Bush greeted Congressman Barney Frank with a shoulder and head touch, as the two shared a personal moment.

Fox News commentator Brit Hume felt moved to point it out, without saying the word 'gay':

"Hold on a second, what we just saw there was an interesting moment, a moment of friendship and almost affection between the President and none other than Barney Frank.

"Who I think it's fair to say is one of the most liberal Members of Congress, also one of the smartest guys up there, but, uh..."

His co-host Nina Easton was quick to point out that Congressman Frank has co-operated closely with the White House as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

It later emerged that Frank had encountered the President before his speech.

On the phone to his boyfriend while waiting the Speaker's Lobby, Frank was approached by the President, who leaned in and said "tell him I said hello."

The affectionate exchange captured by the cameras after the President's speech was in fact the Congressman saying:

"Mr. President, by the way, the person I was talking to when you said to say hello was my boyfriend."

"Well. I hope you said how open-minded I am," was Bush's response.

"I considered telling [the President] I wouldn't marry him," Frank told the Boston Globe, "but then I thought, 'Nah.'"

President Bush has tried to introduce an amendment to the US Constitution banning same-sex marriage, while Mr Frank's home state of Massachusetts is the only one in the US to have legalised it.

Congressman Frank has represented the 4th District of Massachusetts since 1981, and is one of two out gay people in the House of Representatives.

Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Congresswoman, is the only lesbian in the House.

An outsider in Congress Frank, a Harvard-educated lawyer, has a sharp tongue and is consistently voted one of the funniest members of the House.

He came out in 1987, and his political opponents have tried to smear and unseat him on many occasions.

Many opponents thought he was politically dead after a rent boy scandal in 1990.

Attempts to expel him failed - the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him instead.

The people of his district stuck with him through the scandal - he won re-election in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote. In 2006 he ran unopposed.

In 1998, he founded the National Stonewall Democrats, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Democratic pressure group.

He has been a vocal and articulate defender of LGBT rights. Speaking out against the Federal Marriage Act, which would have amended the US Constitution to ban gay marriage, he said:

"We're told "don't take things personally", but I take this personally. I take it personally when people decide to take political batting practice with my life."

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6713.html

Mr Clinton Goes To Manchester

Bill Clinton made an outstanding address to the Labour party conference today.

The former US president praised Tony Blair as a true progressive who had delivered change to the UK while overseeing economic prosperity and increased employment.

He also singled out Gordon Brown for his work in Africa and said the Chancellor has a "stunning vision for Britain."

The conference were entranced by the 40-minute oration by Mr Clinton, which ranged across many of the problems facing the world today. He also spoke candidly about the state of America, warning delegates that their good work could be swept away if the electorate change "the faces in the driving seat."

He listed the achievements of the Labour goverment under Tony Blair, repeating the message that none of it came by accident.

"I think one of the biggest problems right now is that people take your achievements and your ideas for the future for granted.

"The reason is we have produced prosperity and social progress for so long it's easy for people to believe its just part of the landscape," he told delegates.

Mr Clinton also thanked, in the name of all Americans, the "nameless, faceless" members of the British security services who recently prevented a terrorist plot to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic.

In an emotional tribute to the Prime Minister, President Clinton thanked Tony Blair for his personal friendship through troubled times, and thanked Cherie and the Blair children for "their many kindnesses to Hilary and me, and Chelsea, throughout the years."

"I want to thank Tony Blair for his leadership, for his preservation of our old trans-Atlantic alliance through quite a lot of storm as well as occasional sunshine.

"I want to thank him for his personal friendship to me through storm and sunshine."

He had more praise for Cherie for putting up with the tribulations of being in public life, and told the audience with Hilary in the Senate, he now finds himself much more angry when the press say nasty things about her than he ever was when they attacked him.

Mr Clinton was upbeat about the future, saying that as a progressive party, Labour can always offer more to the voters than a status quo Conservative party.

"It's always time for change in a great and dynamic nation. Do not let anyone ever present to your citizens any future choice... as change versus more of the same.

"You are the change agents in this great nation. You have been and you will be."

On the subject of the state of the world, President Clinton made an impassioned case for a more intelligent approach.

"Since we can't kill, jail or occupy all of our enemies... we also have to spend some time and money making more and more partners and fewer enemies."

Mr Clinton said in retrospect he wished he had thought more about the root causes of terrorism while he was in office, when he gave hundreds of millions of dollars in defence aid to countries such as Pakistan without even considering whether cash to build schools or pay for teachers might have had more effect.

"It is so much cheaper to alleviate poverty, put kids in school, fight disease, build government capacity and economic capacity in a poor country than it is to fight a war."

Follow the link - I know it is 39 minutes long but really it is worth it. At times I thought I was watching a Jimmy Stewart film.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/email/news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_5380000/newsid_5385600/bb_wm_5385638.stm