Representative Barney Frank Announces He Will Not Seek Se-Election, Once An Opponent Of Repealing United States Policy Prohibiting Openly Gay Service Personal General Amos Now Vocal Advocate Of Its Demise, Conservative Rabbis Struggle To Accurately Articulate Same Sex Marriage Vows, First Look At Archie Comics Gay Interracial Marriage, Andrew Garfield

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, the longest serving openly gay member of Congress, said Monday he will not seek re-election in 2012 in a move he said was triggered by redistricting that left him with too many new constituents to serve as a “lame-duck” legislator. “There are too many constraints,” Frank said about his life as a politician and the energy it would take to meet new voters so late in his tenure. “People are sceptical about incumbents,” he added. “There was also this — I don’t like raising money.” According to The Boston Herald, he called his redrawn 4th Congressional District packed with too many new faces — 325,000 more voters, he said — more than he could serve in two years. Frank said he also has had a “busy and stressful” four years dealing with financial reform after the recession, and added the “anger” in the country and the “inside work” he did best “won’t be constructive” as he prepared to retire from office. So, he said, he’s leaving the political arena — but stressed he would not be a stranger. “I will miss this job and I will have some twinges of regret ... but one of the advantages is I don’t have to pretend to be nice to people I don’t like,” Frank said, adding he won’t be a “historian nor a lobbyist,” but will write. Frank, 71, has served in Congress since 1980. He took questions about his decision to relinquish his seat at Newton City Hall. He said he intends to remain active in public policy issues, including defending the so-called Dodd-Frank bill that he co-authored in the wake of the financial collapse of 2008. “I think I will find my motives less impugned and I will be able to talk more about the merits,” he said. Frank’s district was redrawn this fall as part of a series of redistricting changes prompted by the state’s relatively slow population growth. Frank’s 2010 campaign manager, Kevin Sowyrda, said a key factor in the congressman’s decision was that the newly drawn up congressional district strips away New Bedford from Frank. The South Coast, heavily Democratic, pro-union fishing city has long been a prime power base for Frank, but his new district now includes several more moderate suburban towns, such as Walpole, rather than New Bedford. “It’s a tougher district,” said Sowyrda, who was recently hired as a consultant by Frank to analyze the new district. “Barney was not thrilled at all with the map when he saw it. New Bedford, where his vote was huge, was sliced. His exact words to me were, ‘They didn’t do me any favours.’ ” Sowyrda also said Frank’s “brutal” 2010 battle with Republican Sean Bielat was a factor in his decision. The race marked Frank’s toughest re-election fight in years and was highlighted by scathing criticism of the congressman’s role in the nation’s housing collapse, as well as a Herald video that went viral that showed Frank’s longtime boyfriend, Jim Ready, taunting Bielat on the campaign trail. “I think the guy was struggling with the decision,” Sowyrda said. “I think he said to himself, ‘I just had this brutal fight in 2010. I don’t know if I’m up for it again.’ He’s 71. It’s time to move on and do other things.” Among the pool of potential candidates to run for the rare open congressional seat are Newton Mayor Setti Warren, who recently dropped out of the Democratic primary to challenge U.S. Sen. Scott Brown; Brookline selectwomen Jesse Mermell and Deb Goldberg; state Rep. Dan Winslow, a Norfolk Republican and former judge; and state Sen. Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton). Bielat said the changes made during the redistricting process likely made re-election more difficult for Frank. In a statement released Monday by The White House, President Barack Obama called Frank "a fierce advocate for the people of Massachusetts and Americans everywhere who needed a voice," and added, "He has worked tirelessly on behalf of families and businesses and helped make housing more affordable. He has stood up for the rights of LGBT Americans and fought to end discrimination against them."

Since the lifting two months ago of a longstanding U.S. ban on gays serving openly in the military, U.S. Marines across the globe have adapted smoothly and embraced the change, says their top officer, Gen. James F. Amos, who previously had argued against repealing the ban during wartime. "I'm very pleased with how it has gone," Amos said in an Associated Press interview during a week-long trip that included four days in Afghanistan, where he held more than a dozen town hall-style meetings with Marines of virtually every rank. He was asked about a wide range of issues, from his view of the Marine Corps' future to more mundane matters such as why he recently decided to stop allowing Marines to wear their uniform with the sleeves rolled up. Not once was he asked in Afghanistan about the repeal of the gay ban. Nor did it come up when he fielded questions from Marines on board the USS Bataan warship in the Gulf of Aden on Saturday. On his final stop, in Bahrain on Sunday, one Marine broached the topic gently. He asked Amos whether he planned to change the Marines' current policy of leaving it to the discretion of local commanders to determine how to handle complaints about derogatory "homosexual remarks or actions." Amos said no. The apparent absence of angst about gays serving openly in the Marines seemed to confirm Amos' view that the change has been taken in stride, without hurting the war effort. In the AP interview, he offered an anecdote to make his point. He said that at the annual ball in Washington earlier this month celebrating the birth of the Marine Corps, a female Marine approached Amos's wife, Bonnie, and introduced herself and her lesbian partner. "Bonnie just looked at them and said, 'Happy birthday ball. This is great. Nice to meet you,'" Amos said. "That is happening throughout the Marine Corps." Amos said he is aware of only one reported incident in Afghanistan thus far, and that turned out to be a false alarm. He said a blogger had written of a gay Marine being harassed by fellow Marines for his sexual orientation. In an ensuing investigation, the gay Marine denied he had been harassed. A Defense Department spokeswoman, Cynthia O. Smith, said implementation of the repeal of the gay ban is proceeding smoothly across the military. "We attribute this success to our comprehensive pre-repeal training program, combined with the continued close monitoring and enforcement of standards by our military leaders at all levels," Smith said. In the months leading up to Congress's repeal, which took effect in September, there were indications that the change might not be embraced so readily. During a visit to a Marine combat outpost in southern Afghanistan in June, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates was confronted by an enlisted Marine who clearly objected to the repeal. He told Gates that the Marine Corps has "a set of standards and values that is better than that of the civilian sector," and that repeal of the gay ban has "changed those values." He asked Gates whether Marines who object to serving with gays would be allowed to opt out of their enlistment. Gates said no and predicted that if pre-repeal training was done right, "nothing will change" with regard to rules of behaviour and discipline.

Having recognized gay rights with their 2006 acceptance of gay unions, Conservative rabbis are now wrestling with the issue of gay rites, The Jewish Daily Forward reporting that the recent efforts of three leading rabbis to construct a kosher wedding ceremony for same- ex couples hews closely to the traditional Jewish heterosexual ceremony, in an effort, they say, to ensure that same sex couples suffer no inequality in the sacred standards governing their vows. But these efforts, ironically, are now drawing criticism from some activists for replicating aspects of the Jewish wedding rite that they consider sexist. “In a way it’s a shame, there is an opportunity for a less problematic, more contemporary liturgy,” said Jay Michaelson, founding director of Nehirim, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jewish group. (Michaelson is also a Forward contributing editor.) What is more important than parity between same-sex and heterosexual ceremonies, critics say, is equality between partners. While traditional Jewish marital rites — or kiddushin — describe the man as the owner of his wife, some gay and lesbian Jews say they want to avoid this hierarchical language in favour of an egalitarian template. The trio of rabbis leading the effort to devise a sacred structure for same-sex wedding vows that will meet the threshold as kiddushin are Elliot Dorff, a professor of Jewish theology at American Jewish University; Daniel Nevins, Dean of the rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary; and Avram Reisner, head of the Chevrei Tzedek Congregation in Baltimore. The same three rabbis also authored an influential ruling in 2006 that welcomed gays into the Movement. At a meeting on November 16, the rabbis presented their proposal for same-sex marriage and divorce rites to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, Conservative Judaism’s official rabbinical association. Because the document is still in draft form — it will likely be voted on in June 2012 — the rabbis declined to share it with the Forward. But the rabbis, describing the marriage template in broad terms, said that it was modeled on the traditional ceremony, taking place under a canopy, with an exchange of rings and a recitation of the traditional seven blessings, among other rites. The main discrepancy is that the gendered language has been changed. According to Reisner, the rabbis felt that if they strayed too far from traditional marriage in their proposal to the committee, they would be seen as offering gay and lesbian Jews a ceremony that was both separate and unequal. “The community would not feel warmly if they felt they were being offered some radically different thing,” he said.

Archie Comics earlier this year revealed the recently introduced the openly gay character Kevin Keller, (who is wildly popular) would not only be the series first same sex marriage, but also its first interracial union. And now, Archie Comics unveils the cover of the historic issue of Life With Archie, Bleeding Cool has the first look.

Andrew Garfield, spotted arriving at LAX, continues the charade that he and Spiderman co-star Emma Stone are not a couple.