WASHINGTON--Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) intends to marry his longtime partner, Jim Ready, according to his office.
"Barney is planning to get married to his partner Jim Ready. The ceremony will take place in Massachusetts," Harry Gural, Frank's spokesman, told HuffPost.
A date has not been set.
Frank announced last November that he was retiring at the end of his term. Frank initially said that he was running for re-election, but said he changed his mind after the state's redistricting process would have forced him to run in a new district with many constituents he had never represented before.
He first won election to Congress in 1980.
Frank came out publicly as gay in 1987, blazing the trail for other openly gay public officials.
Frank met Ready in October 2005 at a fundraiser in Maine. After Ready's partner died in January 2007, the two began a relationship.
Frank expanded on setting a personal example for gay rights in a recent interview with the Boston Globe."It's one thing to say 'I'm not prejudiced against a person who is a gay,'" he said. "It's an entirely different matter to accept that person in their personal relationships. So over the past five years or so, Jimmy [Ready], my partner, and I have made it a point to attend events together, to go to public places as a couple. It's important that people see that."
Massachusetts is one of six states, and the District of Columbia, to grant same-sex marriages.
Ryan Grim contributed reporting.
