by Robin Evans, seaQwa editor

Philadelphia Gay News last week made a splash not only by printing an interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton, but also with a strongly presented editorial criticizing Democratic party frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama for failing, so far, to talk to local gay papers during the primaries.

see Qnews summary: In interview with gay paper, Clinton says she'd defend gay rights as president; Obama silent 

The paper headlined its web-page story on the Clinton interview, "Clinton talks; Obama balks." Its criticism was even more pointed in the paper edition. PGN highlighted Obama's silence by leaving a blank space on the front page where his interview would have appeared.

"Senator Obama's lack of dialogue with the local gay press is disappointing," PGN publisher Mark Segal said in a press release. "The local gay press often is to the LGBT community what churches are to the black community."

Some gay blogs dismissed Segal's criticism by noting that he'd given a $1000 donation to Clinton a year ago.

Segal, in turn, dismisses that criticism. He told The Politico that he'd disclosed the small donation at the time he made it and said he has since praised Obama for his candidacy in general and specifically for his race speech.

"The issue here is that he has basically not spoken to the local LGBT press," Segal told The Politico.

In its report on Obama's relationship with the local gay press, The Politico found other reporters and editors at local gay papers who echoed Segal's frustration.

The National Gay Newspaper Guild, which represents 13 gay newspapers, requested interviews with Obama, Clinton and Sen. John Edwards in the months leading up to the Super Tuesday primaries. None of the candidates accepted the invite.

In the weeks following the Feb. 5 elections, however, Clinton began talking with the gay press.

She met with Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff, who endorsed her in late December. She held a conference call with journalists from the Dallas Voice and Ohio gay publications before the March 4 primaries, and spoke last week with the Philadelphia Gay News.

Obama has taken a different route.

Before the March 4 primaries, he wrote an “open letter” to gay newspapers and blogs, promising to “use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in the family and adoption laws.”

He highlighted his difference with Clinton over the Defense of Marriage Act – he favors a complete repeal, while she supports a partial pullback.

The campaign also placed full-page ads in the Dallas Voice and in newspapers in Columbus, Cleveland, and Houston. It was reportedly the first ad buy by a presidential candidate in the local gay press.

Laura Kiritsy, the editor of Bay Windows, a New England gay newspaper, has written twice about what she perceives as the campaign’s cautious approach to the gay press, The Politico reports. She blames Obama’s “handlers” for the problematic relationship.

"Because he is the frontrunner and he is kind of the most unfamiliar ... he has the most to lose," Kiritsy said. "That always makes candidates or their handlers a little more wary and reticent on LGBT issues so they don’t come out looking like the crazy, moonbat liberal who will perpetuate the gay agenda. That is what he is dealing with."

She may have a point, given the apparent response of the Obama campaign to the criticism. Obama, it turns out, agreed to an interview with a gay paper just days after PGN printed its editorial.

But his handlers did not arrange an interview with a local gay paper or even a group of local papers. Instead, they agreed to an interview with national gay magazine The Advocate.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told The Politico that the Advocate interview was not done in response to Philadelphia Gay News dustup, but coming so soon after Segal's very public complaint that their candidate had closed out local gay papers, the campaign's decision to talk to the decidedly non-local Advocate could easily be interpreted as a virtual slap-down of local papers.

Reference: Gay press frustrated by Obama approach | The Politico
Clinton talks; Obama balks | Philadelphia Gay News