We stand for a progressive religious voice - Gay Pride focuses on Religion, Marriage

NEW YORK - Religious groups led the city's gay pride parade on Sunday, lending gravity to an often outrageous event that also featured a jumble of drag queens in feather boas, marching bands, motorcycle-riding lesbians, rugby players and samba dancers.

"We stand for a progressive religious voice," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda, I believe, are blaspheming God's name."

The annual parade, one of dozens around the world, commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots in which patrons at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back against a police raid.

At San Francisco's festival, the wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards marked the occasion by splitting with her husband over support for legalized gay marriage.

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

Kleinbaum, who heads the world's largest predominantly gay synagogue, and the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, were the New York parade's grand marshals, waving from hers-and-his convertibles.

The march took place days after the New York State Assembly passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, which Gov. Eliot Spitzer supports. Although the bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled state Senate anytime soon, parade-goers said they were cheered by the Assembly's action.

"This is one very important step toward full equality for all New Yorkers," Kleinbaum said.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, one of the nation's most prominent openly gay elected officials, said she could not predict when the Senate might approve same-sex marriage.

"All conventional wisdom in New York state on gay marriage is out the window," she said. "I think we are really doing better than anyone would ever have thought we could be doing on this."

As in past years, exhibitionism was also on display as the parade inched down Fifth Avenue and into Greenwich Village. Revelers gyrated in bikini briefs and pranced in spike heels.

But the placement of the Christian, Jewish and Buddhist religious organizations near the head of the march - ahead of AIDS service groups and political advocacy groups - gave them unaccustomed prominence.

A Buddhist group carried signs that said "Construct Dignity in Your Heart" and "Don't Block Your Buddha."

"We're all Buddhas," said Hortense De Castro, a teacher from Manhattan. "It's just a matter of letting it come out."

In San Francisco, Elizabeth Edwards made her remarks on same-sex marriage almost offhandedly after delivering a standard stump speech during a breakfast hosted by the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club. California's presidential primary is Feb. 5, one of the earliest in the nation.

"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."

In December, John Edwards said: "It's easy for me to say, civil unions yes, partnership benefits, yes," he said. But on gay marriage, he said, "I'm just not there yet."

New York's parade featured contingents of gay police officers and firefighters, as well as ethnic gay groups including South Asians, Haitians and American Indians.

An Argentinian and Uruguayan group featured an Eva Peron impersonator in a flowing gown.

Tens of thousands of people attended the march. Spectators lining Fifth Avenue included gay people sporting rainbow flags and curious tourists.

Andrew Stanley of Shrewsbury, England, said the march was "very colorful."

"I've never seen one before," he said, "but I think it's a good idea."

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Associated Press writer Paul Elias in San Francisco contributed to this report

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