Barney Frank: “I am grateful for the obscurity of the opposition's argument. I first filed a bill 35 years ago to say that you couldn't…”

“I am grateful for the obscurity of the opposition's argument. I first filed a bill 35 years ago to say that you couldn't fire someone because he was gay or she was a lesbian, and at the time people were very straightforward about their opposition. Times have changed. It is no longer fashionable to say that you ought to be able to discriminate against someone based on his or her sexual orientation, so we now get other arguments. Let me say this: I have heard a number of people raise this argument that the real problem is that it says 'perceived.' I do not believe that a single one of them would change his or her position if we were to remove that. They are opposed to the notion that gay men and lesbians, people like me, should be allowed to prove themselves in the workplace without discrimination, but that's not a good argument to make. So we get 'perceived' as the argument, and it is not a serious one. In the first place, it's arguing about having to defend a negative; it's wrong, both legally and factually. The burden of proof is on the complainant. No employer has to prove a negative. It is the complainant who has the hard job of proving the positive. That's why historically statutes like this, every time we try to protect some people against discrimination, we go through two phases. First, beforehand, we get the most absurd exaggerations of the chaotic impact it will have. After the fact, they are rarely, unfortunately, enforced very vigorously.”