Source: Advocate
In an interview released today, Sen. Barack Obama, the frontrunner Democratic presidential nomination, said he'd be a strong advocate for LGBT interests elected in November.

"I reasonably can see 'don't ask, don't tell' eliminated," the senator told Advocate news editor Kerry Eleved in an talk conducted Tuesday. "I think that I can help usher through an Employment Non-Discrimination Act and sign it into law."

He said he'd make that federal employees in lesbian or gay partnerships have are able to transfer health or pension benefits "the same way that opposite-sex couples do."

He said he'd be an advocate for federal recognition of state civil unions or domestic partnerships.

"[A]n area that I’m very interested in is making sure that federal benefits are available to same-sex couples who have a civil union," Obama said. "I think as more states sign civil union bills into law the federal government should be helping to usher in a time when there’s full equality in terms of what that means for federal benefits."

Obama said it could be too much of political battle to pass an Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) bill that includes gender identity. "I have been clear about my interest in including gender identity in legislation," he said, "but I’ve also been honest with the groups that I’ve met with that it is a heavy lift through Congress. We’ve got some Democrats who are willing to vote for a non-inclusive bill but we lose them on an inclusive bill, and we just may not be able to generate the votes. I don’t know. And obviously, my goal would be to get the strongest possible bill -- that’s what I’ll be working for."

He also discussed with Eleved the political problems that might arise if members of the Joint Chiefs oppose lifting the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) rule, but said he wouldn't make opposition to DADT a "litmus test" for appointing members to that body.

"Obviously, there are so many issues that a member of the Joint Chiefs has to deal with, and my paramount obligation is to get the best possible people to keep America safe," he said. "But I think there’s increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that this is a counterproductive strategy -- ya know, we’re spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn’t make us more safe, and what I want are members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are making decisions based on what strengthens our military and what is going to make us safer, not ideology."

Obama defended his campaign's access in the face of recent criticism that it has closed the candidate off from access to local gay newspapers.

"The gay press may feel like I’m not giving them enough love. But basically, all press feels that way at all times," he said. "Obviously, when you’ve got limited amount of time, you’ve got so many outlets. We tend not to do a whole bunch of specialized press. We try to do general press for a general readership."

Later in the interview, he compared the complaints about access to the criticism leveled at his campaign for including an anti-gay preacher on the dias during a North Carolina campaign event.

"[M]y campaign is premised on trying to reach as many constituencies as possible, and to go into as many places as possible and sometimes that creates discomfort or turbulence," he said.

To do that, he said that his campaign has generally tried to avoid specifically targeted media. "If you’re segmenting your base into neat categories and constituency groups and you never try to bring them together and you just speak to them individually -- so I keep the African-Americans neatly over here and the church folks neatly over there and the LGBT community neatly over there -- then these kinds of issues don’t arise.

"The flip side of it is, 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 and our campaign is built around the idea that we should all be talking."

Full article: Obama Talks All Things LGBT with The Advocate | The Advocate