Associated Press
Monday, June 25, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, June 24 -- Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, kicked off San Francisco's annual gay pride parade Sunday by splitting with her husband over support for legalized same-sex marriage.

"I don't know why someone else's marriage has anything to do with me," Edwards said at a news conference before the parade. "I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage."

Edwards made the remark almost offhandedly in answering a question from reporters. The topic arose after she delivered a standard campaign stump speech during a breakfast hosted by the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, an influential San Francisco political organization.

The Edwardses' daughter Cate, a 25-year-old law student, also supports same-sex marriage.

Elizabeth Edwards conceded that her support puts her at odds with her husband, a former senator from North Carolina. She said he supports civil unions for same-sex couples, but not marriages.

"John has been pretty clear . . . that he is very conflicted," she said. "He has a deeply held belief against any form of discrimination, but that's up against his being raised in the 1950s in a rural Southern town."

None of the leading presidential candidates has publicly supported same-sex marriage.

San Francisco's gay pride parade is a campy civil rights celebration, sprinkled with drag queens, leather chaps and nudity. Very rarely do mainstream, national politicians ride or march in the parade.