Barney Frank at the ACS Conference

Neo Tokyo Times has a brief rundown of the Keynote Speech that Congressman Barney Frank gave on Saturday during the American Constitution Society's Regional Student Leadership Conference. I crashed the keynote speech and was similarly impressed with the Congressman. For those of you that aren't aware, the ACS is kind of like the parallel universe version of the Federalist Society, but without the sinister goatee so you know that they're the good guys. As such, Congressman Frank could not help but note our own Governor's recent run-in with the group. It's no wonder John Roberts wanted to distance himself from the Federalist Society, Frank noted, if their idea of a funny joke is to compare the notoriously anti-Catholic KKK with Senators Kerry and Kennedy. Sure, Romney's gotten some criticism for not standing up for the Commonwealth at the time, but those of us who are paying attention have come to expect this kind of treatment at the hands of our Governor -- the same man who never once rebuked President Bush or any of his surrogates while they heaped their disdain on Massachusetts during the 2004 campaign.

Congressman Frank also professed his belief that the foes of marriage equality in Massachusetts would not be successful with their current attempt to put a stop to gay marriage. He predicted that supporters of the initiative that would ban all such marriages going forward would not even see the required 50 votes in the Legislature -- and even if it did, by the time it went to a vote, people would be so used to the idea that it would not pass. His contention was that most people have forgotten about it, it has become so uncontroversial. I have to admit, I was surprised by his confidence. He also admitted that the decisions should be up to individual states and that states where it is illegal should not be forced to give full faith and credit to the unions legalized elsewhere. I wanted to ask him whether that meant he was in favor of the 1913 law here in Massachusetts that forbids out-of-state residents from marrying here if it was not legal in their home state, but time did not allow.