McCain Campaign Does Written Q&A With LGBT Newspaper

The McCain campaign granted an interview to the Washington Blade Wednesday that produced few surprises other than giving the first glimmer that, although Sen. John McCain presently supports the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, he would consider having it analyzed. "On 'don’t ask, don’t tell,' I’m going to defer to our military commanders. So far they have told me it’s working. I’m willing to have the policy reviewed to make sure that’s the case, but at the end of the day, I’m going to rely on the commanders who will be impacted by a change in the law," McCain responded in a written statement.

Though the answers were presented by the McCain camp as coming directly from McCain, the Blade noted that the interview was conducted as a written exchange, with the questions being supplied to the campaign in writing and the campaign responding in kind.

During the course of the interview, McCain invoked his commitment to federalism several times, saying that he supported the Defense of Marriage Act because no state should "be compelled to recognize a marriage from California or Massachusetts," that adoption by gays should be left up to individual states though he believes "a child is best raised by a mother and father," and noting that he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in both 2004 and 2006 because marriage "should be a state matter, and not one for the federal government -- as long as no state is forced to adopt some other state’s standard."

But McCain also made clear that he supports passage of Proposition 8, which would overturn California's supreme court decision legalizing marriage. "As I did in my home state of Arizona, I support the effort in California to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. However, the people of California will ultimately decide this issue, and I’ll of course respect the decision of the voters," he said. McCain's position on the marriage ban has been murky until now, with his campaign signaling at one point that he supported efforts to pass the ban and then backtracking to say he simply supported the right of the voters there to decide.

While LGBT Democrats said the interview simply highlighted that Sen. Barack Obama is far more progressive on gay issues than McCain, Log Cabin Republicans president Patrick Sammon took a different view. "This interview just shows that we've taken a quantum leap forward in the Republican Party from four years ago," Sammon told The Advocate.

Sammon noted several points that he said showed movement for McCain: that he laid out two areas that needed to be addressed for him to sign an employment nondiscrimination bill -- making sure the law wouldn't lead to a flood of lawsuits or infringe on religious institutions; that he called for the development of a national AIDS strategy to address the domestic HIV/AIDS crisis; and that he is open to reviewing "don't ask, don't tell."

Obama has pledged to sign an employment nondiscrimination bill into law as president, develop a national AIDS/HIV strategy, and support repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." (Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate)