Edwards's Wife Voices Support for Gay Rites

By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 25, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO — None of the major candidates for the White House in 2008 has embraced legalizing gay marriage, but Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of one hopeful, John Edwards, said yesterday that she's ready.

"I don't know why someone else's marriage has anything to do with me," Mrs. Edwards said after delivering a speech to a gay and lesbian political group here, according to the Associated Press. "I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage."

Mrs. Edwards acknowledged that her husband, a former senator from North Carolina, still opposes gay marriage, though he supports civil unions.

"John has been pretty clear about it, 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."

While the homosexual community has made huge strides as a political force in many parts of America, most national political candidates still seem wary about being associated with the gay and lesbian lobby.

Gay pride marches took place in cities across America yesterday, including San Francisco and New York, but none of the top presidential candidates from the Democratic or Republican camps joined in.

President Clinton enjoyed major support in the gay community, but he eschewed gay-oriented events until after his re-election in 1996.

Gay activists applauded Mrs. Edwards's comments, while conceding that most candidates are reluctant to adopt the same stance.

"It's always great when other leaders take that position," a former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, Andrew Tobias, said. "It's a tough position to take when it's still so controversial and most states are not comfortable with it."

It was unclear whether Mrs. Edwards's comments were a deliberate effort to court the gay community without her husband having to change his stance on the sensitive issue of gay marriage.

The Associated Press reported that her statement was delivered in an off-hand fashion as she took questions from reporters.

A Democratic consultant, Christopher Lehane, said such public discrepancies between politicians and their spouses are sometimes disclosed accidentally and sometimes not so accidentally.

He pointed to provocative statements from Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin Roosevelt.

"Time and time again, she was promoting ideas that were significantly farther ahead than he was," Mr. Lehane said. "It's pretty clear a lot of that was done strategically."

With all the major candidates in the presidential contest opposed to gay marriage, the players are under no particular pressure at the moment to change their position.

However, if Mayor Bloomberg enters the race as an independent, the contours of the issue could change abruptly. He unabashedly favors gay marriage and marched in yesterday's gay pride parade in New York.