Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker when we convened for the lame duck session several weeks ago, I shared with our colleagues a very insightful article from the Washington Post by Fred Hiatt pointing out the extreme gap that exists between the Bush Administration's claim that the advancement of democracy is a major goal of its foreign policy, and the almost complete absence of any real activity towards that goal in the execution of that foreign policy. The elevation of the promotion of democracy to central status in the Bush foreign policy--in contrast to a great extent to the President's scorn about nation-building when he ran for office in 2000--came partly because of the need to find some substitute justification for the war in Iraq, after weapons of mass destruction and the tie to the 9/11 murders were both shown to be without factual basis. So, many of the neo-conservative supporters of the President--some of them actually believing it--argued that overthrowing Saddam Hussein was an essential step towards an administration policy towards implementing democracy in the Middle East. This has of course proven to have no more factual basis than the weapons of mass destruction or al-Qaida tie. As Joel Brinkley notes in a long article in the New York Times for Sunday, December 4, ``When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other senior American officials arrive at a summit meeting in Morocco next week that is intended to promote democracy across the Arab world, they have no plans to introduce any political initiatives to encourage democratic change.'' (emphasis added) Contrary to those neo-conservatives who predicted that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would begin an era in which America was hailed for its liberating role, and democracy would become almost infectious, as Mr. Brinkley notes, ``Since then . . . the popular view of the United States in the region has grown so dark, even hateful, that American officials are approaching the meeting with caution and with a package of financial and social initiatives that have only a scant relationship to the original goal of political change.'' Mr. Speaker, as we begin a new term for President Bush, with Colin Powell no longer available to provide a facade of moderation, the harsher realities of the Bush foreign policy are becoming clearer. Among these are the President's lack of any real commitment to the promotion of democracy as an American foreign policy goal. Joel Brinkley's excellent analysis is further strong evidence of this and I ask, because of the importance of this subject to our national policy debates, that his very useful article be printed here. [From the New York Times, Dec. 4, 2004] U.S. Slows Bid To Advance Democracy in Arab World (By Joel Brinkley) Washington, Dec. 4.--When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other senior American officials arrive at a summit meeting in Morocco next week that is intended to promote democracy across the Arab world, they have no plans to introduce any political initiatives to encourage democratic change. President Bush started speaking in 2002 about the need to bring democracy to the Arab nations. Since then, however, the popular view of the United States in the region has grown so dark, even hateful, that American officials are approaching the meeting with caution and with a package of financial and social initiatives that have only a scant relationship to the original goal of political change. Administration officials and their allies defend the change in strategy, saying the United States should no longer try to take the lead. ``Others have gotten involved in the political side, and that is a good thing,'' said Lorne W. Craner, who was assistant secretary of state for democracy and human rights until August and now is president of the International Republican Institute, a government-financed organization dedicated to advancing democracy worldwide. But administration officials said some senior officials in the State Department were frustrated by the unwillingness of their colleagues to raise political initiatives at the meeting. A senior administration official involved in Middle East policy said that if the American program remained largely centered on business and financial initiatives, ``that's not good enough.'' The United States needs ``to hold people accountable,'' he added. Another official working in the same area added that Arab leaders were ``willing to take the aid, but they're not willing to carry out the reform.'' Mr. Powell, in a radio interview on Thursday, said he hoped the summit meeting participants would ``come to an understanding of the need for reform and modernization in the broader Middle East and North Africa region.'' When the State Department set up a news media briefing last month on the Morocco meeting, it assigned Alan P. Larson, undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs, to make the presentation. He said the meeting was intended ``to create greater opportunities for the next generation in the broader Middle East'' through grants and aid to small businesses, networking among regional financial institutions and exchanging ``views about how to bring more capital in the region,'' among other ideas. The United States is involved in most of those efforts through its Middle East Partnership Initiative. In an interview, Mr. Larson contended that these and other financial proposals would contribute to democratic change, at least indirectly. ``When you help small entrepreneurs, that creates a middle- class part of the social underpinning of a democracy,'' he said. ``We see synergistic links between political and economic initiatives.'' He and other officials said more direct discussions of political change would come from the Democratic Assistance Dialogue, a new program administered by Italy, Turkey and Yemen intended to foster discussion of political change. But after an initial organizational meeting in Rome last month, future meetings have not yet been scheduled, said Burak Akcapar, counselor in the Turkish Embassy. The Middle East Partnership Initiative, which has received $264 million from Congress since 1993, has a political component. But a study by two scholars at the Brookings Institution, published this week, found that it was ``increasingly shifting its resources from democracy promotion and engagement with local volunteer organizations, to the far less provocative path of regime-led economic development.'' That ``can have the effect of subsidizing an Arab government's attempts to build a kinder, gentler autocracy,'' it added. ``The whole thing rings hollow,'' said Steven A. Cook, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan research group based in New York. ``What is missing is not technical and financial know-how, it is the political will to reform,'' said Mr. Cook, whose field of study is political change in the Arab world. ``I don't think these programs mesh with the president's rhetoric.'' At the briefing, Mr. Larson emphasized repeatedly that the Morocco conference was not ``an effort to impose anything from the outside as much as to facilitate efforts that are already being undertaken in the region'' and ``share experiences, share ideas'' among Arab foreign ministers. Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a public research organization said, ``If only the Arab leaders are involved, that will be a brief discussion.'' Anger about a perceived bias toward Israel in Washington and about the war in Iraq have made the United States quite unpopular among many in the Arab world. Then, in February, when an Arabic newspaper published a draft of a Bush administration plan urging the world's wealthiest nations to press for political change in the Middle East, several Arab leaders erupted in anger. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, a close ally of Washington, called the plan ``delusional.'' The administration quickly abandoned the plan. The unspoken fact behind all of the discussions, said Leslie Campbell, director of the Middle East Program at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a government-financed group that promotes democracy worldwide, ``is that we are trying to work with a bunch of people who are going to be kicked out of office'' if democratic change moves forward. For now, he added, ``it's easier to support free-trade agreements than political change.'' Now, not only do many Arab leaders oppose the plan for broad democratic change, so do some opposition leaders. ``The Bush plan is opposed by the ruling elites who fear losing their privileges and powers,'' wrote Amir Taheri, a political commentator, in Gulf News, ``and by a variety of oppositionists who use anti-Americanism as the key element of their political message.'' There is little question that Arab leaders prefer the new approach. A senior Arab diplomat said in an interview that when American officials spoke to his nation's prime minister about political change recently, ``the prime minister told them: `I have two trains--the political train and the economic train. And the political train cannot run ahead of the other.' ``So we started talking to them about economic development,'' the diplomat said. A senior State Department official said discussions with several Arab states brought similar results. In a speech to open a session of Parliament on Wednesday, King Abdullah II of Jordan emphasized that his country must continue ``reform, modernization and development,'' which would enable ``the Jordanian individual to actively take part in formulating the present and the future.'' He went on to emphasize that change should be focused on fighting ``poverty and unemployment.'' Mr. Craner, the former State Department official, said: ``I would watch for the prominence of political versus economic and social reforms I discussed at the meeting. If it is mostly economic and social, it is not a good sign.'' The senior Arab diplomat offered a broader warning. ``Something must happen as a result of this meeting,'' he said. ``If nothing happens, it will be very difficult to keep this alive because there are lots of people who want to kill it.''

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the recent resignation-- apparently encouraged by the President--of Secretary of State Powell has stripped one of the important facades behind which the reality of the Bush foreign policy has been hidden. It is deeply regrettable that the President and the Secretary of State worked together to keep this facade in place until now, because the fact that the Secretary of State would be leaving is the sort of information that would have been relevant to the voters on Election Day. There is no clear evidence that Secretary Powell had any great influence on the Administration's foreign policy, but his having been around did I think help the Administration in its effort to appear more reasonable in its foreign policy than it has been. But Secretary Powell's leaving is not the only recent example we have of a facade being lifted from this Administration's record in international affairs. In the Washington Post Monday, November 15, Fred Hiatt points out another great gap between the reality of the President's foreign policy and the way in which the Administration has described it--the issue of the promotion of democracy as a goal of American foreign policy. As Mr. Hiatt notes, when John Kerry ``made clear that promoting democracy abroad would not be a priority of his presidency,'' this quote ``allowed George W. Bush to claim the high moral ground of foreign policy.'' As Mr. Hiatt notes, the President asserted at his nominating convention in 2004, ``I believe in the transformational power of liberty . . . the wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.'' But as he points out, this high-minded statement of purpose bears very little relation to the Bush foreign policy in reality. Mr. Hiatt clearly documents the President's high tolerance for wholly undemocratic actions by foreign nations as long as they are compliant with American foreign policy in other regards. Indeed, as he notes, the only two examples that can be cited by the President's defenders in which the goal of promoting democracy has played a role are Afghanistan and Iraq. And these examples in no way bear out the claim that the President has made the advancement of democracy a central part of his foreign policy--or even a peripheral one. In Iraq, the President advanced the notion of promoting democracy to explain his decision to go to war only after his preferred political explanations--the tie between Iraq and September 11th and the presence of weapons of mass destruction--were rebutted. Democracy here was a rationalization constructed to justify a policy that clearly had other goals, and then only after alternative explanations were refuted. It is true that the results of the American intervention in Afghanistan will certainly be a far more democratic Afghanistan, and I welcome that. But here too it should be noted that the President's approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade. Democracy in Afghanistan will be a happy byproduct of our war, but it was not the motivating factor. Beyond that, as Mr. Hiatt makes clear, there is not an area in the world in which promotion of democracy has been an important part of the Bush foreign policy. To quote Mr. Hiatt, ``in Bush's first term, democracy promotion seemed to be the policy mostly when it was convenient . . .'' I agree with Mr. Hiatt that it is not axiomatic that the promotion of democracy should be the single or even the most important goal of American foreign policy in every instance. But what is--or at least ought to be--clear is that a President should not claim a moral basis for his foreign policy which in no way corresponds to reality. Mr. Speaker, with Colin Powell no longer serving as a diversion without real policy influence, and with the experience we have had with the Administration's inaccurate claims about weapons of mass destruction, I hope that the Administration's actual foreign policy will receive a good deal more scrutiny than it has in the past. Mr. Hiatt's column is a good beginning in that effort. I ask that it be printed here. [From the Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2004] A Foreign Policy To Match Bush's Rhetoric? (By Fred Hiatt) In an interview last spring, Sen. John F. Kerry made clear that promoting democracy abroad would not be a priority of his presidency. Of course he believed in freedom and human rights, but in every country there seemed to be a goal that would rank higher for him in importance: securing nuclear materials in Russia, fighting terrorism alongside Saudi Arabia, pursuing Middle East peace with Egypt, controlling Pakistan's nuclear program, integrating China into the world economy. Kerry's ostensibly pragmatic approach alarmed some idealists in his own party and allowed George W. Bush to claim the high moral ground of foreign policy. ``I believe in the transformational power of liberty,'' Bush declared as he accepted his party's nomination for the second time. ``The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.'' But here's the irony: Kerry's recital of priorities around the world was a pretty fair description of Bush's first-term record. An interesting second-term question will be whether the president reshapes his policy to match his rhetoric: whether he really believes that democracy abroad is in the U.S. national interest. There are, after all, plenty of smart foreign policy experts who doubt that proposition. In 2000 Bush did not campaign on a liberty platform, and even after his oratory began to soar, his policies didn't change much. In Afghanistan and Iraq, democracy evolved gradually into a central goal of post-invasion U.S. policy. But in the rest of the world there seemed--just as for Kerry--to be higher priorities. The administration counted its management of relations with China and Russia as a major first-term success, for example, marked by stability and cooperation in fighting terrorism. The fact that China was chewing away on Hong Kong's freedoms, and continuing to lock up its own dissidents, journalists and priests, didn't get in the way. The stunning rollback of freedoms in Russia didn't seem to bother Bush either. Smaller countries offered a similar picture. Bush welcomed Thailand's autocratic leader as a comrade in the war on terrorism even as democracy there eroded. Under congressional pressure, the administration rapped the knuckles of Uzbekistan's torturers, but not so hard as to interfere with a budding military relationship. Azerbaijan's longtime communist strongman bequeathed power to his ill-prepared son, but that was okay; Azebaijan is rich in oil and gas. Pakistan's strongman broke repeated promises to return his country to civilian rule, but he was too valuable an ally against al Qaeda for the administration to object. And so on, around the world. The choices Bush made weren't evil, and they didn't mean that, all things being equal, he wouldn't prefer to encourage democracy. The United States was attacked, and it needed basing rights in Uzbekistan to retaliate. Its economy needs Azeri oil, and Venezuelan oil, and all kinds of other undemocratic oil. The alternative to the general running Pakistan might be a lot worse--a fundamentalist Islamic regime with nuclear weapons, for instance. So there were strong arguments for maintaining good relations with all of these autocrats. But that's the point; there will always be countervailing arguments. If you think democracy is just a secondary, wouldn't-it-be-nice objective--if you don't think raw national interest is served by spreading freedom abroad--liberty will always rank below some mother, legitimate priority. You might understand if Bush felt that way. After all, it was democratically elected leaders in France and Germany who caused him the most first-term heartburn. Many experienced diplomats, including senior officials of the Bush administration, believe it's more important to appeal to the national interest of a Russia or an Egypt than to worry about how those nations are governed. But Bush says he is convinced of the opposite view: that America will actually be safer if more countries become democratic. ``As freedom advances, heart by heart, and nation by nation, America will be more secure and the world more peaceful,'' he argued in that same convention address. Such a belief translated into policy would not mean that liberty would automatically and always take precedence over basing rights, counterterrorism cooperation or smooth trade relations. But in Bush's first term, democracy promotion seemed to be the policy mostly when it was convenient: in Palestine, where it allowed him to avoid confrontation with Israel's leader; in Cuba, where it allowed him to win votes in Florida. If you see him in the next four years risking other U.S. interests to champion liberty where it is not so convenient, then you will know he meant what he said on the campaign trail.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in previous election years we have heard about an October surprise. We did not have an October surprise this year. We are getting a November surprise. Now, it is not a surprise to those of us who serve in this body. It is an unpleasant surprise to the American people, particularly those people who think that as a collective society we have some responsibilities to each other, because this is an appropriations bill that fails to fund adequately those programs that are essential to improving the quality of our lives to the extent that they must be done together. People on the other side are fond of saying it is the people's money, not the government's money. Of course it is the people's money. But civilized and sensible people understand that we have two sets of needs for our money. Some of our needs, our desires are best met by money that we have individually and as families. But in our society particularly there are essential needs for our well-being that can only be met if we pool our money. Now, on the one level people understand that they know that homeland security cannot be advanced by a tax cut. But neither can environmental cleanup, neither can transportation, neither can our ability to extend some compassion to people in need. The majority understand that. They understand that the American people understand that. So that is why, and let us be very clear, the sole reason we are here today a couple of weeks after an election funding the government for the rest of the year is the majority's craven unwillingness to stand up before the election for what they truly believe in. They have successfully hidden from the American people the true consequences of their philosophy. And that is the November surprise. People who believe that America ought to be vigorously cleaning up environmental messes left from earlier periods, people who think we ought to be expanding the amount of affordable housing we have, people who think we ought to be extending health care for Americans rather than seeing it continue to erode, people who think we ought to be meeting our international obligations. I read just this past week in Congress Daily that there is a shortfall in the money we send to feed starving people overseas. That is not adequately funded. Some of the President's own priorities are not funded internationally. It is true, I gather, they did manage to give in to the administration and there is money to go to Mars, and maybe ultimately the homeless can live there. But God help them, they better be able to because they certainly are not going to be able to find housing here. Again, let us be clear here. There is no reason whatsoever why in this lame duck session after the election we are funding all of the important domestic elements of government and some of the international ones, except the majority's understanding that the consequences of their anti-government attitude simply would not have worked well before the election. The sole purpose of this timing is to deceive the American people. Fortunately, that deception cannot continue because we are going to have elections in the future. And we are going to test this philosophy, and here is the philosophy. It is an administration that believes that all we have to do to reach the good life is essentially to remove all restraints on capital. Do not tax it. Put the taxes on people's consumption or on the money they earn for working. Do not hobble them with environmental regulations. For goodness sake, do not allow labor unions to speak up for their people. Do not make them pay overtime very much. Four years from now the minimum wage will be meaningless because it will not move for 4 years under their administration and inflation will accomplish what the ideologues cannot accomplish openly. It will be eroded. But let us go back to the budget. Now, the members of the Committee on Appropriations have always gotten praise here, including the majority members. What is the general phrase? They have done the best they can in a bad situation. Given the constraints they face, they have done a good job. Let us be very clear, those constraints, those limitations; that is, inadequacy of funding for our public purposes, which is how as a society we in part express our aspirations for decency, for quality of life, for compassion, those constraints were not natural constraints. They did not come from the heavens. They are not natural phenomena. They are the result of the conscious policy choices of the administration and the majority. A decision to go to two wars, one of which was necessary in my judgment, one of which was not, and then to do five tax cuts, has left us, and the majority acknowledges that implicitly today by bringing up two weeks after an election measures that by any sense of democratic procedure should have been voted on before the people got to cast their ballots. So the majority implicitly acknowledges that its extremely conservative assault on government, its refusal to acknowledge that there are important moral purposes that we can only accomplish if we pool our resources and work together as a people, they implicitly acknowledge the unacceptable nature of that, and we will continue this debate over the next 2 years.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, this month marks the second anniversary of a very important organization dedicated to fighting prejudice in the United States in a very constructive manner. The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, founded in November 2002 by Justin Nelson and Chance Mitchell is, to quote from the statement which the NGLCC submitted to our Financial Services Committee hearing on diversity, ``the only national not-for profit advocacy organization specifically dedicated to the economic advancements and opportunities of the American LGBT business community.'' The NGLCC carries on this work by its formation of a `` broad-based coalition, representative of the various interests of American LGBT owned and friendly businesses, professionals, and students of business to increase economic opportunities among membership, corporate interests and federal, state and local governments.'' We hear a great deal in our public debate these days about the importance of people working together, being constructive, avoiding divisiveness etc. This can be overdone--democracy requires the honest airing of differences. But it is also important that these differences take place within a context of recognition of shared values, and the NGLCC plays an extremely important role in this. This organization demonstrates that combating prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity is not only not inconsistent with an effort to work for greater unity in our country, but is in fact an essential part of that effort, properly understood. Justin Nelson and Chance Mitchell through their own commitment to advancing our capitalist system, while simultaneously fighting the prejudice which deprives some people of the full chance to participate in that system, play a very important role. To quote further from the statement which they submitted to our Financial Services Committee, ``It is the unfortunate experience of millions of LGBT Americans that homophobia and ignorance has been the silent killer of developing and growing LGBT enterprises and a better quality of life for all LGBT Americans. Too often it is the experience that LGBT Americans feel compelled to remain in the closet to safeguard their personal and professional financial condition . . . That millions of LGBT Americans live half lives in the financial marketplace, and the workplace is simply not in the best interest of a strong, vibrant and competitive American economy. ``It is a universal truth that as human beings, we are at our best when we can represent ourselves as whole and complete individuals, encouraged to contribute with vibrant creative energy the many talents unique to each of us as individuals. That LGBT Americans are shackled by institutionalized discrimination is not only shameful, it is not good business.'' It is not easy to start an organization, and it is particularly difficult when the organization being started is one that seeks to bridge significant gaps that divide people in our society. There are a number of organizations that effectively advocate for the rights of LGBT Americans. There are others that are forceful supporters of the legitimate interests of the business community. I know no other at the national level that exists precisely not simply to show that these two goals are not inconsistent, but that, properly understood, they reinforce each other. I have had the opportunity to work with Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Nelson on several occasions, and I am impressed by the quality of their work. I make this statement today on the floor to call attention to this excellent example of how people can work truly to better our country in every way. Mr. Speaker, Members seeking more information on this useful organization can consult the hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight of the House Financial Services Committee on diversity and financial services, which was conducted on July 15, 2004.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez), one of the members of the Committee on Financial Services who has been most active on this issue in a very informed way.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), who has been a leader on this issue and who is the author of the very important substitute amendment which genuinely embodies the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the minority whip, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make it clear that my criticisms do not extend to our part of the bill. I lament that the House in general has not followed the example we have set.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, you have heard from the gentleman from New Jersey and the gentleman from Maryland the criticisms of what are not in the majority's bill. Much of what the 9/11 Commission asked for is not in the bill. I want to talk to my objections about what is in their bill that was not in the 9/11 Commission report, and not just to the specifics, but the procedure. The House has been put into a position time and time again of being given legislation, and it is kind of like being a dog given a pill. When people want to give medicine to a dog, they wrap it in something the dog wants to eat. When the majority has controversial pieces of legislation that could not pass on their own, they wrap it in something which Members will be afraid to vote against. And that is what we have in this bill. Not in our section dealing with financial services, but in the majority's bill is an example of a tactic that has been used repeatedly. You take controversial things, things that ought to be fully debated, things that many Members would not support on their own, and you wrap them in something which has a great deal of political appeal to try and coerce Members into voting for it. It is in repudiation of that tactic that I and many others, if the substitute fails, will vote against the basic bill, because I am tired of being given legislation that resembles nothing so much as a pill being fed to a dog.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the sections of this bill that are relevant to the jurisdiction of the Committee on Financial Services are useful ones and not controversial. Indeed, in our committee, as the chairman has mentioned, we adopted a couple of amendments which make some improvement. Some of them, while not directly related to terrorism, the amendment by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly) regarding conflict of interest potential at the Comptroller of the Currency is a very good piece of legislation. It is not directly relevant to terrorism, although it does not detract. But I am troubled by the choice the House is being forced to make on this in general. I believe that overall, the bill that will be offered by the gentleman from New Jersey, who will be speaking to it shortly, is a far better response to the terrible tragedy of 9/11 and subsequent than the bill that the majority has put forward. It reflects the deliberations of that 9/11 Commission far better on the central issues involving intelligence, involving the way in which the government is organized in the security areas. It has the potential to be genuinely bipartisan as we saw from the other body. And, in fact, what we are being asked to do is something we have been asked to do all too often recently. What we ought to be doing is what was done in the Senate. We ought to have a bill before us that is amendable. That is what many of us asked to have before us. Instead, we get two packages, and in the end Members will have to choose all or nothing. I will choose the bill when we come to vote on the substitute that more nearly reflects the 9/11 Commission, indeed, very closely tracks the 9/11 Commission. It has several advantages. It does follow the extensive deliberations of the 9/11 Commission in a thoroughly bipartisan manner. It also makes it likelier that we will get a law passed, because if the bill put forward by the majority passes, the differences between House and Senate versions will be quite substantial and the likelihood of a conference report being adopted before the election in time for that bill to go into effect this year will be slight. I do not understand why we have not been able to follow in this bill and in many others the normal democratic process in which a bill comes forward and we are able to amend it and vote on amendments. That is the way it used to be. I can remember when we would do that. Today, what we are told by the rule is you will choose one package or another, and neither package will be perfect. Given that choice, I much prefer the 9/11 bill as opposed to what we are being given by the majority as their version. But I regret very much the continued loss of democracy in the House. I regret very much the failure to follow what a parliamentary democracy ought to follow. Bring a bill to the floor, and let it be amended. As we try to bring democracy to parts of the world that have not had it before, I fear that we set them a very poor example; and I have to hope, Mr. Chairman, that they are paying less attention to us than I would like to be able to say. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request. (Mrs. MALONEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, during the debate last week on the amendment that would overturn Massachusetts' decision to allow same-sex marriage, I received permission to put into the Record an excellent article by M.V. Lee Badgett, refuting the shoddy scholarship of Stanley Kurtz, who has alleged with no logical basis that same-sex marriages have somehow caused a decline in heterosexual marriages in some European countries. I should note that Mr. Kurtz completely ignores, in his research, the most relevant example for us--civil unions in Vermont. But even with regard to the handful of European countries he analyzes, his work does not support the conclusion he is so desperate to sustain. M.V. Lee Badgett has done a very good job of refuting Mr. Kurtz, and I was glad to have a chance to insert her analysis in the record of the debate from last Thursday. Unfortunately, her name was omitted. I recommend, Mr. Speaker, that those reading this insertion who are interested in the subject go to the Congressional Record for September 30, at page H7914, to read the article entitled ``Will Providing Marriage Rights To Same-Sex Couples Undermine Heterosexual Marriage?'' in which Ms. Badgett demolishes Mr. Kurtz.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for showing great leadership on this. He was, to my knowledge, the first Member of this body to decide that we ought to take some action. He spoke to me early when this was first called to our attention, and he has been very diligent and very thoughtful and others, the gentleman from Texas, gentleman from New York, have joined in. So I am glad we are at this point where we are about to pass very good consumer protection legislation, and this is a species of that legislation; and it shows what our role ought to be, namely, to start from the assumption that the market will work and we will leave things to the market, but to be ready to step in when the market fails and it does not include the kind of protections that it ought to include. This is a very thoughtful piece of legislation, worked out in a bipartisan way, under the leadership of the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker), the chairman of the subcommittee; the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski), the ranking member. I am delighted to join in supporting it.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. I thank the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) for his courtesy; and I am grateful to the leadership of the committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) and the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), for bringing this forward. Massachusetts is rich in history, but this is a particularly significant piece of Massachusetts from an historic standpoint. As the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) pointed out, the Liberty and Union Flag was raised there in 1774. This is the place here in Taunton where the revolution was fueled. Robert Treat Paine, a resident of Taunton, signed the Declaration, and it continues to be important. The courthouse green, a lovely area, was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the greatest landscape architect in our history and, probably, the history of the world. I am privileged to have an office right in the midst of this. So I guess I should say I would be a beneficiary of this. But it is for the city, and it will be passed on. I also should say that I became the Representative of Taunton in the last redistricting. And for the prior couple of decades it was extraordinarily well-represented by one of our great former colleagues, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Moakley, who was sadly taken from us a few years ago. So as we put this bill forward, I am delighted to do it, but I also want people to understand that I do this in tribute, in part, to the legacy of Joe Moakley, one of the great leaders in this House, widely respected and even loved by both sides. This is a genuinely important historical operation. It played a historic role in the Revolution. We had Frederick Law Olmsted there. It was also very important in the Industrial Revolution. It continues today to be a very important community. So I am grateful to the committee for bringing this forward and I look forward to the passage of this bill and subsequent action by the Park Service.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask the previous speaker, who said he had presided over the dissolution of 20,000 marriages, I just wonder, in how many of those was the cause of the dissolution some gay relationship? I mean, I am prepared to own up when I am at fault. Am I responsible, as a gay man, for any of those 20,000 dissolutions? The gentleman said there were 20,000 dissolutions. Would he tell us in how many of those 20,000 dissolutions was the existence of a gay marriage or gay civil union the cause?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. A half a dozen out of 20,000.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I apologize. If the gentleman would continue to yield briefly.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I apologize for assuming that the gentleman was referring to gay marriage. This is a debate about gay marriage. So when the gentleman talked about the dissolution of 20,000 marriages, I made, apparently, the incorrect inference that there was some relationship between what the gentleman was saying and the subject under suggestion. I withdraw the inference.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, consistently proponents of this amendment have tried to hide what it does. Yes, there is a question about what one State could be compelled to do by the Federal courts to respect another. If that were the problem, an amendment could come forward aimed narrowly at that. I would not support it. But an amendment that said the full faith and credit clause does not apply could have come forward. This amendment goes far beyond that. But the proponents of it apparently understand how indefensible it is in the very democratic terms which they use, and therefore they conceal it from the people, speaker after speaker after speaker. I hope the majority leader will tell us why he will not be straightforward about this element of it and here is what it is: this does not simply say that judges cannot decide the question. And it does not say that one State cannot compel another. It also says, and its major impact, if it were to pass, would be to say to the voters of Massachusetts, no matter what you say in a referendum, no matter how you, the democratic electorate of Massachusetts, choose to define marriage, we the Federal Government overrule you. What justification have you for that? You say the people of Texas, the people of Tennessee want to decide. Why not the people of Massachusetts? Why did you not draft an amendment that would have honored the right of a State's electorate to make a decision? Our legislature is now in charge of this issue. The legislature will decide and the referendum will decide; and this amendment undeniably, but silently, says that no matter what any State does, it will be overruled. Vermont's civil union law originally came from the courts, but it has since been accepted by the political electorate. There have been votes in Vermont over this. Elections. This would also be overturned. But now let me turn to the merits. We heard one gentleman say that he was not talking about same-sex marriage. He just noted that he had presided over the dissolution of 20,000 marriages. I am a gay man and I have presided over the dissolution of none. So I guess I do not feel quite as guilty about assaulting marriage as some of you would like me to feel. I am sorry Rush Limbaugh has been divorced three times, but it ain't my fault; and it is not the fault of any of my friends. That is the issue. We are not assaulting marriage. Since when is it an assault on something for people to say, you know what, we have been excluded from this institution. We are also human beings and we feel love. We feel it in a way different than you. We feel it for someone of the same sex, male or female. And we look at your institution of marriage, and we see the joy it brings. We see the stability it brings to society. How does it hurt you if we share in it? That is the core issue I have not heard understood. What is it about the fact that two women in love in Massachusetts want to be legally as well as morally responsible for each other and live together and keep their home? Why is that an assault on you? What a case of blaming the victim. You are defending yourselves against two loving people whose failure is to love each other and to want not simply to be free floating but to be committed? What is it you are protecting yourselves against? How do we threaten you? What about the love of two men so disturbs you that it would dissolve marriages? There are apparently, what, men and women happily married all over the country and they will learn that in Massachusetts the legislature allowed same-sex marriage to continue and they will get a divorce, they will call the gentleman from Texas and he can make it 20,001. The gentleman from Texas, the majority leader, says this is not about gay marriage. Yes. And God didn't make little green apples and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime. This is a political effort and it comes up a month before the election when it has been an issue since May of this year at least and before, a month before the election, an amendment that has no chance to pass, demonizes same-sex couples. I say demonize for this reason. You say, we do not have anything against these people. Then why do you change my love into a weapon? Why if I have the same feelings that you do towards another human being does that somehow become the only weapon of mass destruction you have ever been able to find? I urge the House to turn this down, let the people of Massachusetts make their own choices, and let loving men and loving women live in peace.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I insert into the Record answers I gave to the Committee on the Judiciary and some further material which rebut the preposterous conclusion of Stanley Krutz, which was quoted here, that somehow, same-sex marriage resulted in a decline in heterosexual marriages elsewhere. Judiciary Committee, Constitution Subcommittee, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC. Answers to the questions from Jerrold Nadler: When I was asked about Stanley Kurtz's research by Congresswoman Hart at the hearing, I had not read any of his work. I now have and I can say that I believe his interpretation is entirely without intellectual merit. As I recall Ms. Hart's question, she asked me to accept Mr. Kurtz's factual assertion that a recognition of same-sex marriage had been followed in various European countries by a decline in heterosexual marriage, and asked if I could think of any possible explanation other than that the former had caused the latter. I was reluctant to answer the question before reading the data lest I be validating premises and assumptions which I would later find to be invalid. This turns out to be the case. In fact, Mr. Kurtz does not himself argue that same-sex marriage recognition preceded a decline in heterosexual marriage. In every country he discusses, and his selection is surprisingly sparse, a point to which I'll return, a decline in heterosexual marriage and childrearing in heterosexual marriages preceded by a significant period of years any recognition of same-sex marriages. But even on the narrow--and inaccurate--statement of Mr. Kurtz's position that Ms. Hart put forward, the alternative explanation to the assertion that same-sex marriage causes a deterioration in heterosexual marriage is a simple one: They may both be effects of the same or similar social causes. Indeed, as Ms. Hart put the question to me, it can serve as a dictionary example of the logical fallacy known as ``post hoc ergo propterhoc.'' That is, the fallacy that believes that if something happened after something else, it must necessarily have been caused by it. The key point again to stress is that Mr. Kurtz himself does not argue that same-sex marriage recognition preceded the deterioration in opposite-sex marriage. In fact, Mr. Kurtz himself argues essentially that the primary relationship of same-sex marriage and a decline in heterosexual marriage is that they are both cause by the same set of social phenomena. A fundamental flaw in his reasoning of course is that he does virtually no analysis of any of the European countries in which there has not been some form of recognition of same-sex relationships. In other words, there is zero comparative analysis in his work. Have significant deteriorations in the incidence of heterosexual marriages happened in other European countries which have not in fact recognized same-sex relationships. The answer is almost certainly yes but we will never know that from reading Mr. Kurtz, who carefully avoids even posing that question, obviously lest his hypothesis be endangered. He does refer to England as a country where there has been a significant deterioration in the number of heterosexual marriages, but fails to note that this undercuts his argument about the relationship between this and recognizing same-sex relationships since England had not done that at the time of his analysis. The second point to be stressed is that Mr. Kurtz is not talking about same-sex marriage in most cases, but rather of various forms of recognition of same-sex relationships, akin to domestic partnerships or civil unions. This is relevant because some of those who questioned me who are supporters of a Constitutional amendment asserted that they were talking only about the unique nature of marriage, and seemed to think that Mr. Kurtz supported them. Of course he does not since he conflates marriage and other forms of recognition throughout his analysis. Thus, the distinction that one Constitutional amendment draws between marriage and other forms of same-sex relationships does not appear to be at all supported by Mr. Kurtz's analysis. I have read both his testimony and his article in the Weekly Standard carefully and I am unable to find any coherent argument that says that recognizing same-sex relationships reinforced--he does not claim that they are the primary cause--a decline in heterosexual marriage. His exact statement is ``there is good reason to believe that same-sex marriage and marriage-like same-sex registered partnerships are both an effect and a reinforcing cause of the Scandinavian trend towards unmarried parenthood.'' The primary cause of the ``marital decline in Scandinavia'' according to Mr. Kurtz, incidentally, are ``contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, cultural individualism, secularism and the welfare state.'' That is, all of these have by Mr. Kurtz's own analysis more of a responsibility for the decline of heterosexual marriage and same-sex-marriage. This of course reinforces my earlier point--namely that Mr. Kurtz scrupulously in his analysis avoids looking at the statistics in countries which have not recognized same-sex marriage, since virtually all of them in Western Europe are affected by these other factors. And it does appear that to Mr. Kurtz, even if we abolish same-sex relationship recognition, we would have to ban or severely restrict contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, cultural individualism, secularism and the welfare state if we were to save marriage. I recognize that there are members of the Judiciary Committee who are attracted by the notion of restricting some or all of these, and I commend their discretion in not being more explicit about this wish. When it comes to causality, the only effort to establish a causal relationship-between recognizing same-sex unions and the decline in heterosexual marriage comes in his testimony when Mr. Kurtz says that ``same-sex partnerships in Scandinavia have furthered the cultural separation of marriage and parenthood in at least two ways.'' He then says that ``first, the debate over same-sex partnerships has split the Norwegian Church,'' and he argues that this weakening of the traditionals within the Norwegian Lutheran Church is a cause of an increase in same-sex relationships. I have tried very hard to find the second causal factor but a very close reading of the text produces no second. So we are left with one assertion of causality--namely that the fact that ``clergy who preach against homosexual behavior are banned'' from preaching in parts of Norway means that their advocacy of heterosexual marriage is no longer heard. This reinforces my view that whatever is or is not happening in Scandinavia in this regard has virtually no relevance to the United States. I am aware of no religious denomination that has banned clergy from the pulpit if they are against same-sex marriages. There are some denominations that allow this to be performed, but there should be no analogy between the United States, where the great majority of religious groups do not recognize same-sex marriages, and Mr. Kurtz's view of parts of Norway where virtually all clergy who oppose same-sex marriage are banned. To be explicit, if the causality that links a recognition of same-sex relationships to a decline in heterosexual marriage rests entirely on the fact that anti- same-sex relationship clergy are being marginalized and in some cases silenced, it has no relevance to the United States where nothing of that sort has happened or is likely to happen. This leads me to my final point--namely that reading Mr. Kurtz makes it even clearer than it was to me before that the most relevant experience to draw on in predicting what impact recognizing same-sex relationships will have on American society comes from Vermont. Some have argued that the Vermont experience is not relevant because it has only been in effect for four years or so. But Mr. Kurtz himself has an important section in his testimony on the Netherlands, where ``formal same-sex marriage . . . took effect in 2001,'' and ``marriage-like registered partnerships'' dates from 1998. In other words, the Vermont experience is roughly comparable in time to that of the Netherlands, and if Mr. Kurtz is right in judging an impact based on the Netherlands, Vermont should be equally relevant from the chronological standpoint--and, as a part of the United States, far more relevant culturally. We have one set of experiences with legal recognition of same-sex relationships in the United States--that of Vermont. It shows none of the negative effects that opponents of same- sex marriage have predicted. Mr. Kurtz advances a correlation in the contin ued decline of marriage in various European countries--where that decline long predated any recognition of same-sex relationships--and the recognition of same-sex relationships. But he carefully confines his analysis only to those countries where same-sex relationships have been recognized, so we have no way of telling whether or not the decline in marriage that he attributes to same-sex relationships has been equally great in countries where there is no such recognition. And the only specific causal point he advances is that this silencing or intimidation of Norwegian Lutheran clergy who oppose same-sex marriage has diminished their ability to preach in favor of heterosexual marriage. I am very certain in my view that the experience in Vermont is far more relevant to gauging the impact of a recognition of same- sex relationships in the United States than is the experience in a couple of Norwegian counties where the clergy opposed to same-sex relationships have been silenced. Barney Frank.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the previous remarks are drawn from the research of a man named Stanley Kurtz, research that is of a very low level of intellectual activity. It would make some of the debate here today seem scintillating. In fact, I have submitted information that makes it very clear that as far as the Netherlands are concerned, the trends involved predate same-sex marriage. As a matter of fact, there were same-sex civil unions first, then same-sex marriage. What has happened in the Netherlands predates that. The main author himself states that these are probably effects of the same cause. Now, let us look to the United States. Vermont has had full civil unions, which most of the Members over there disagree with, since 2001, with zero, no negative effects, the same period of time as the Netherlands has had.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I would just ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania, before he leaves, because he is so certain about the Netherlands, and I will yield him my remaining time, when does he believe that same-sex marriages began in the Netherlands and what was the rate? What is the date? Would the gentleman from Pennsylvania answer me? When did the same- sex marriages start in the Netherlands?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Well, you made the statement. You do not know?