July 8, 2012

(JTA) — U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) married his longtime partner Jim Ready.

Frank and Ready were married Saturday evening in a ceremony officiated by the governor of Massachusetts.

Frank, 72, who will retire from Congress at the end of the current term after 16 terms in the House of Representatives, came out as gay in 1987, the first congressman to do so of his own volition.

He is reportedly the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage.

Frank and Ready, 42, met at a November 2005 political fund-raiser in support of gay rights in Ready’s hometown of Ogunquit, Maine. 

In 2004, Massachusetts became the first American state to allow same-sex couples to be legally married; today eight states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriages. 
 

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