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)

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Name: Scott Rose
Date posted: 2008-10-03 1:21 AM
Hometown: New York

Comment:

I wish the Blade had asked the McCain campaign what it will do to lessen the pervasive anti-gay bigotry in America that results in millions of school children being tormented by fellow students for the length of their public school education because they either are, or are perceived to be gay. I wish the Blade had then asked the McCain campaign if it acknowledges that in America, teen suicide rates for gays are much higher than for heterosexuals and that that is because of pervasive anti-gay bigotry. The individual rights questions . . marital rights . . . et cetera should be secondary to the elimination of the irrational bigotry against us. When the press asks questions about the right's touchstone issues involving gays, instead of confronting the candidates about the bigotry underlying the hateful conservative stances on these issues, it becomes complicit in perpetuating the bigotry.

Name: Mark
Date posted: 2008-10-02 8:30 PM
Hometown: Santa Monica

Comment:

McCain becomes the first Republican presidential candidate to talk to the gay press and The Advocate manages to turn it into an Obama campaign ad. Obama has backed off of any commitment to repeal DODT or DOMA. He's got a supporter of Prop 8 and the Federal Marriage Amendment in his latest Bible thumping endeavor. He believes that giving homophobes a national platform is supporting diversity. I don't back McCain. I've never voted for a Republican, but I'm sick and tired of all this one-sided hipocrisy passing itself off as un-biased journalism. The only way gays are ever going to achieve equality in this country is by rewarding BOTH parties when they are supportive and punishing BOTH parties when they aren't. Fundies have figured that out and found a new savior in Obama. Are they really smarter than we are?

Name: Daniel
Date posted: 2008-10-02 12:19 PM
Hometown: New Hope, PA

Comment:

Well, I suppose that at least nobody can accuse the McCain campaign of pandering to LGBT voters. These answers are all pretty anti-gay, even if phrased in "polite" terms. Leaving DADT up to military commanders (nearly all conservative Republicans and heavily Evangelical) would produce a predictable result. Likewise saying that he supports states' rights to decide the marriage issue themselves, but then attaching his support to states' efforts to ban it is clear hypocrisy. He also openly states that he would seek to contain any advances in marriage from spreading between states. Finally, he flat out demeans gay parents by his simplistic assertion that children are betst raised by a father and mother. How can anyone interpret him as even remotely gay-friendly?

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