Click here to view "Dignity And Respect" [PDF].

Both Democratic presidential campaigns have been eyeing ad space in Pennsylvania's gay print media, which serve a small constituency but one that could play an outsized role in the close-fought contest.

Should either candidate run ads targeting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community during this last week of the primary race, the move would not be unprecedented. According to a Barack Obama campaign official interviewed by Editor & Publisher, Obama earlier this year became the first presidential candidate ever to take out ads in local gay newspapers when he placed a spot [PDF] in four papers leading up to the Ohio and Texas primaries.

Featuring a profile photograph of the candidate along with a passage that makes reference to a watershed moment in the history of gay rights, the ad tailors Obama's broad message of unity for its target audience. It reads:

While we have come a long way since the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.

Obama LGBT steering committee member Eric Stern told The Advocate that the ad calls "for the country to come together and unify around creating national progress toward equality for LGBT Americans."

But reaction within the gay community has been mixed. Tony Molnar-Strejcek, publisher of Pittsburgh's gay monthly Out, said he didn't think that the ad would be effective in reaching a wide spectrum of people, and that younger readers would not remember the Stonewall Riots. He added that "the use of the words 'dignity and respect' could be construed by our older readers as Barack Obama not going far enough. We want basic human rights that include legal recognition of our relationships."

Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal disagreed, however, arguing that the ad was very effective and that the reference to Stonewall "rings deeply." He said his paper has been contacted by the Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigns about advertising, but no space has yet been reserved. Out's Molnar-Strejcek said that a buyer for the Obama campaign had contacted him, but decided against placing an ad after they could not meet the publishing deadline.

But ad buys may be of little consequence in Pennsylvania after Obama did not grant a request for an interview from Segal's newspaper, earning him a scathing PGN editorial and ridicule from elsewhere in the gay press and blogosphere, even though his second interview with The Advocate was published last week.

While some question Obama's engagement with the local gay press, he has not hesitated to tap the demographic's wallets, according to a recent LA Weekly profile of two key Obama fundraisers, Jeremy Bernard and Rufus Gifford. The pair has been instrumental in helping their candidate court the LGBT audience, which some media analysts call "the country's wealthiest, most educated and most professional demographic."