LGBT Press: April 2008 Archives

Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama sat down last week with The Advocate to discuss topics such as his hopes for LGBT legislation during his term as president, his first friendship with an openly gay person, and the effects of the Donnie McClurkin controversy.  Over the course of the campaign, Obama has often taken a different path than his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton when it comes to where he addresses LGBT issues.  Clinton already spoke with The Advocate last fall and since Super Tuesday has also given interviews to regional LGBT newspapers like the Washington Blade and the Philadelphia Gay News, while Obama previously had not spoken to the LGBT press since 2004.

During the interview, Obama addressed criticisms he has received for what some perceive as silence towards LGBT media.  When he declined an interview with the Philadelphia Gay News last week, the paper responded by printing a blank space in its pages where his interview would have appeared.  Obama told The Advocate that he has chosen to focus on discussing LGBT issues to a general audience rather than speaking to specialized press.  “It’s easy to preach to the choir,” he said. “What I think is harder is to speak to a broader audience about why these issues are important to all Americans.”  He then mentioned his speech at Ebenezer Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Day where he “talked about the need to get over the homophobia in the African-American community.”

Discussing the controversy over including anti-gay pastor Donnie McClurkin on his South Carolina tour, Obama said it was an opportunity for constituencies with differing opinions to have a more open discussion.  “If you’re segmenting your base into neat categories and constituency groups and you never try to bring them together […] you never create the opportunity for people to have a conversation and to lift some of these issues up and to talk about them and to struggle with them,” he said.

The Advocate reporter Kerry Eleveld notes how the length of the Democratic primaries has given candidates more time to reach out to LGBT constituents through the media.  “Candidates continually pivot and adjust in order to engage ever more voters,” she said.  “Had the race stopped cold in the snows of New Hampshire, gays and lesbians would have been left with one interview of record for each Democratic candidate in total.”  Whether through mainstream or LGBT media, the candidates hopefully will continue to include LGBT issues as a vital part of their platform and LGBT constituents as an essential part of their voting base.

Cindi Creager is Director of National News