Barney Frank: Mitt Romney 'Despicable' For Anti-Gay Views

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that Mitt Romney was "despciable" for his positions on gay issues, according to the Washington Blade.

Romney trivialized gay marriage and demonstrated a "willingness … to switch and become very anti-gay," Frank told a Blade reporter at a reception for the National Stonewall Democrats’ Capital Champions.

Frank, who has previously called Romney unprincipled, also dismissed his hiring of an openly gay spokesman, Richard Grenell.

“He’s got one openly gay person,” Frank told the Blade. “How many people is he going to hire? He had some openly gay people work for him when he was in Massachusetts. We’re beyond giving people credit for not overtly discriminating.”

Frank, who is retiring at the end of the term, declined to criticize President Barack Obama for not doing more on LGBT issues, but he said he would like to see the Democratic Party platform include a plank supporting gay marriage or more clearly opposing the Defense of Marriage Act. A number of prominent Democrats, including four former DNC chairs, have endorsed adding support for same-sex marriage to the platform.