On Wednesday's episode of The 700
Club, host Pat Robertson smeared openly gay Massachusetts
Representative Barney Frank (Democrat) by claiming he ran a
prostitution ring in the early 90's.
During an interview with South Carolina
Representative Jim DeMint (Republican) concerning his new book about
the drowning of the moral voice by activists, titled Why We
Whisper, Robertson said: “I remember, Barney Frank, who's now
the head of an important committee in the United States House of
Representatives, was caught running a group of male prostitutes out
of his D.C. residence, and one of his colleagues had said, “Did you
think that the Congressman Frank is immoral?” And they said, “Oh,
no, no. What he's doing isn't immoral.” Well, I used to think
homosexuality was immoral.”
According to media watchdog group Media
Matters, Frank was completely exonerated from charges of running a
prostitution ring out of his home by the House ethics committee in
1990.
“...the House ethics committee –
which, at Frank's request, investigated the allegations made by
Stephen Gobie that Gobie was running a prostitution ring out of
Frank's house with Frank's knowledge – determined in 1990 that
Frank “did not have either prior or concomitant knowledge of
prostitution activities involving third parties alleged to have taken
place in his apartment.” Moreover, the committee did not
conclusively determine whether Gobie was even using Frank's apartment
for “prostitution activities,” noting in its report that
purported evidence offered by Gobie that he had been engaging in
prostitution from Frank's apartment collapsed under scrutiny,”
Media Matters reported.
DeMint agreed with Roberson by saying,
“Well, the problem today is the government has said it's right, not
only that it's right, but it's a constitutional right. And states
like Massachusetts and now California are sending signals to the
American people that what we've thought was wrong for years is now
being given the status of marriage, which is our premiere institution
in our whole society. So, a lot of what we do in the book, Pat, is
research the causes and the cost of our culture decline, and as you
pointed out, a lot of court decisions and legislative decisions by
Congress have turned right and wrong upside down. But before the
60's, we knew abortion was wrong, and sex outside of marriage, and
unwed births, and pornography, homosexuality. Yet, if you look now,
the official, or at least implicit, position of the government that
all these things are right.”