Frank: Schock should be 'exposed'

Former Rep. Barney Frank, who wrote in POLITICO Magazine this month about the dilemmas he faced as a gay member of Congress who kept his sexuality private for 32 years, says that if Illinois Republican Rep. Aaron Schock is gay, he should be “exposed” due to his voting record on gay issues.

“When you are in public office and you vote opposite to the way you live your life, no I don’t think you have privacy,” Frank told ABC News in a video published Friday. “Anyone who is gay and votes in an anti-gay fashion has, it seems to me, lost their right to privacy, because it’s been converted to a right to hypocrisy.”


Frank also defended a joke he made earlier this week about Schock’s sexual orientation, following the Peoria-based representative’s announcement that he is resigning from office effective March 31.

In an interview with Business Insider, Frank, noting Schock’s toned physique, said, “He spent entirely too much time in the gym for a straight man.”

The Massachusetts Democrat told ABC that it was “a perfectly valid thing to joke about” and that to suggest otherwise would reflect the idea that it’s bad to be gay.

“I don’t think it’s a terrible thing, and now that I’m not in public office, I feel free to make jokes,” Frank said. “It’s a joke … making fun of gay men who obsess about being in the gym, and it did seem to me that it was an unusual thing. I don’t know many straight guys who spend that much time in the gym and pose with their shirts off all the time.”

Schock has flatly denied being gay, and his father, Dr. Richard Schock, raised the issue of his son’s sexuality this week in an interview with ABC7 Chicago.

“Aaron is very popular. Aaron is a little different,” the elder Schock said. “He wears stylish clothing, and yet he’s not gay. And it makes people — and he’s not married, and he’s not running around with women. So, everybody’s throwing up their arms; they can’t figure out Aaron.”