Does Congress Have Closeted Gay members?

Former Rep. Barney Frank says he believes there are still closeted gay members of Congress . He said so in an interview with CNN while discussing his new book ” Frank” . Frank was one of the first gay members of Congress to come out of the closet . Representative Frank also served the state of Massachusetts , never once losing an election.

Currently, the United States Senate has one openly lesbian member , that is Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin. Former Congressman Frank says he believes that Congress has more , although he did not mention any names. He discussed telling the House Speaker Tip O’Neill that he is gay and said he thinks there are still closeted gay members in the House.

Frank surprisingly praised Texas Senator Ted Cruz , who said that it is not the federal governments position to make the decision over same sex marriage . Frank said he has no problem with gay members of Congress staying in the “closet” what he also said in statement is

“What I think is unacceptable is to vote a certain set of rules as an elected official and then to violate them yourself. But if you are a Democrat, Republican, whatever, and you vote to allow people to do what you do, then I have no demand that you become public.”

Gay and Lesbians in politics is not a new thing , in fact the first openly gay man to run for office was Harvey Milk ,who ran for office in San Francisco in the 1980’s. However gays and lesbians being out in Congress is still something that many are getting used too . That is the reason , Congressman Frank says that so many elected officials are still in the “closet”.