Excluding LGBT From Patrick's Day

Sandy Boyer is critical of the anti-gay sentiment seeking to make New York's Patrick's Day parade a gay free zone.  Sandy Boyer is a host of Radio Free Eireann.

John Dunleavy and his allies on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee seem determined to keep excluding Irish LGBT organizations and drag the rest of us into this never ending controversy.
 

This is important because for better or for worse, mostly worse, the parade is the first and often only thing that much of the world knows about Irish America. 

If the Irish LGBT groups are excluded again, very few people will ever know or notice how many AOH divisions carry “England Get Out of Ireland” banners. 

Once again, really important issues like the torture of Irish political prisoners, British government collusion, or discrimination in employment will be largely eclipsed.  

Irish Americans will be isolated from every city and state wide elected official and the New York City Council.  

Right now, if people know anything about Ireland it’s that it became the first country to pass marriage equality by referendum. In fact, the margin of victory was overwhelming. 

In the North, 20,000 people just marched for marriage equality, led by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Amnesty International. Only the DUP is preventing it from becoming legal in the North as well. 

No wonder it’s so hard to explain to people why Irish LGBT organizations shouldn’t be allowed to march.

The sad thing is that all this is totally unnecessary. 

All it would take would be a decision by the Parade Committee to invite an organization like the Lavender and Green Alliance or St. Pat’s for All to march next year. 

The AOH, although it no longer organizes the parade, still had enormous influence. It is, after all, by far the largest Irish American organization. If the New York City AOH divisions publicly called on the Parade Committee to include Irish LGBT organizations this might all be resolved. 

Otherwise, this will drag on for yet another year and Irish Americans will be the big losers.

4 comments:

  1. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF A BANNER WAS UNFURLED WHICH READ " AMERICA, GET OUT OF GUANTANOMO , SHANNON AND THE MIDDLE EAST " ? LOL. AOH AND THE AMERICAN MILITARY WERE AND ARE ONE OF THE SAME. IRISH AMERICA LOVED TO SERVE THE AMERICAN ARMY DURING THE VIETNAM WAR. PLUS CA CHANGE.

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  2. One of the main problems with Irish Republicanism is that ideals in favour of equality such as the secularism of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and focus on the emancipation of women during 1916 was blindsided by the execution of the Rising leaders and the consequences of the Treaty, partition and a right wing state.

    If the AOH were shown to be behind the times or at least behind progression with their opposition to the IRB surely they can use this opportunity to show that they can show equality and parity of esteem to the LGBT community?

    Onwards and upwards!

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  3. fag free event? Had no idea it was a no smoking parade. Keep them out of it. They fucked this place up enough already.

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