This year's protest - handing it off!

Dear Queers - This year, Irish Queers is handing off the parade protest to some of the committed protesters who have stood alongside IQ for many years. While spectators on the sidelines are vastly more supportive now than they started out 22 years ago, the parade organizers and the Catholic church are intransigent in their bigotry. We still believe it's illegal for the NYPD to march in the parade in their uniformed, official capacity. The fact that they do march underlines how deeply anti-queer bias is entrenched -- it's the same unenlightened police department that terrorizes communities of color with stop and frisk. We hope to challenge that institutional homophobia, and the NYPD's general nonchalance toward New Yorkers' right to their services, with a lawsuit.

For information about this year's protest, email Ed Pass: PassNCO@aol.com.
West side of Fifth Ave between 56th & 57th Sts - 10:45am.

Flyer from this year's ad hoc protest.

Read More

Pix from today's demo...

Here are a few from today! (Click for album.) 

Read More

Pre-parade blog traffic: you like us, you really like us!!!

• New York St. Patrick's Day Parade To Be Protested By Irish Queers 
  
• Will Comcast Make This The Last St. Patrick's Day Parade To Exclude Gays? (Michaelangelo Signorile) 
• Why I Will March in Saturday's St. Patrick's Day Parade (Tom Allon -- see comments!)
• St. Patrick’s Day exclusion continues in New York (Suzy Byrne @ MamanPoulet.com) 

Read More

Protest NYPD & Bloomberg homophobia!! This Saturday.

On Saturday, March 17, the NYPD takes off the mask.
BE THERE TO PROTEST NYPD HOMOPHOBIA!!!
Separate church and state… Separate bigots and public servants!
Sat. March 17 @ 11am

Fifth Ave. between West 56th and 57th St @ The St. Patrick’s Day parade

This Saturday, tens of thousands of cops will march in an explicitly anti-gay parade of hate – Mayor Bloomberg, too. The NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade, once a celebration of Irish New York, is now a “solemn procession” of the religious right. It was redesigned so that anti-gay bigots could parade using the church’s special right to discriminate. The parade officially sends an “anti-gay message” – and the NYPD is its biggest participant.

How much does the NYPD support religious anti-gay bigots? The NYPD actively fought to keep Irish queers out of the parade, fought queers' right to protest the parade, and now sends thousands of officers to march in NYPD contingents. Most recently, when a dozen queer rights and immigrant/cultural groups joined forces to tell NYPD Commissioner Kelly that police endorsement exacerbates anti-queer violence, and to demand that the NYPD pull out of the parade, Commissioner Kelly didn’t even bother to respond.

PROTEST NYPD HOMOPHOBIA and ANTI-QUEER VIOLENCE!
Separate church and state… Separate bigots and public servants!
Sat. March 17 @ 11am
Fifth Ave. between West 56th and 57th St

Read More