Former congressman Barney Frank says he is ‘worried’ about LGBT rights

Openly gay and former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank admitted he’s ‘worried’ about LGBT rights in the United States right now.

Frank served Massachusett’s 4th District in the House of Representatives from 1981 to 2013, when he retired. During his tenure, he fought hard for the community.

In a recent interview with Michelangelo Signorile on SiriusXM, Frank addressed the current state of LGBT rights under the Trump administration.

‘I am worried,’ he acknowledged.

‘They’re smart enough once again to know that an all-out assault on our rights wouldn’t work. Reality has beaten bigotry. Everything they said was going to cause disaster ― same-sex marriage, LGBT openness in the military … didn’t happen.’

Are #LGBT Rights under threat from the #Trump Admin? Fmr. Rep. @BarneyFrank shared his thoughts on the matter w/ @MSignorile yesterday. pic.twitter.com/fDqbkb4Udm

— SiriusXM Progress (@SXMProgress) November 30, 2017

He also discussed transgender rights specifically.

‘With regards to transgender people, I ask, every time this comes up, “Are there any examples?”‘ he said.

‘They talk about the terrible things that are going to happen when these men put on dresses just to stalk the bathrooms, and there are no examples of that. You know that if that had been happening, if people had been using the transgender rights issue to be abusive, we’d know it. There are zero examples of anything like that happening.’

Despite this, Donald Trump issued a memo declaring a transgender military ban in August. Since then, two judges have blocked the ban.

Frank, though, believes conservatives’ tactic regarding LGBT rights is religious liberty.

‘They aren’t going to make a broad assault,’ he suggested. ‘Since they got [Neil] Gorsuch as a Supreme Court justice, what they plan to do is increase the right of people to say, “I’m religiously opposed to this” ― to recognizing our rights.’

He continued: ‘In their view, they can go beyond participating in a marriage. They can refuse to hire you, et cetera. So that’s the scary part, and that’s the part we’re going to have to fight.’

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