Barney Frank

You could be disapproving, but you had to moderate it.

So the real argument against our being able to marry was, as I said, look, there were people who didn't like one of us.

And the notion of two of us getting together and being happy was geometrically worse.

But they couldn't come out and say that.

It was not at that time acceptable, respectable to say, hey, we don't like those people and we don't want them to get out with each other and be unhappy.

So, they came up with this notion, and that's why it was called the Defense of Marriage Act.

To be intellectually honest, it should have been, we don't want those people to be able to get together act.

But they had to come up with supposed negative social consequences.

And one of the reasons that we were able to win this battle was they made the mistake because once Massachusetts…

broke the logjam and started same-sex marriage, it became undeniably clear that there were no adverse consequences.

So they had built their arguments on a false premise.

But you correctly said, oh, it's the institution of marriage.

In a debate on the Defense of Marriage Act, I got on the floor and said, I want to understand—

How does the fact that I love another man hurt your marriage?

What about my relations, voluntary relations with another guy, in any way jeopardizes your marriage?

And I said, I'll yield to any member of the House who wants to explain to me how what I would do would hurt your marriage.

And one guy got up, Steve Largent from Oklahoma, and he said, well, I'll tell the gentleman this.

No, it doesn't hurt my marriage.

It doesn't hurt the marriage of other people here.

But it hurts the institution of marriage.