Those who think of NYC as a place where the streets are so many miles of open-air forum for free expression and diversity... must not live here. This is an incredibly difficult and conservative place for conversations about accountable policing, preserving secular spaces, and supporting communities that don't toe the mainstream line.
In this GCN editorial (and article reporting on some gay elected officials' mysterious refusal to get behind the queer community on the #$%^& parade issue) Gay City News pulls back the veil on how church & state are not so separate in New York City.
Discrimination and a Tale of Two Cities (Editor's letter, Gay City News)
'What I find most frustrating about de Blasio’s position on both these issues is that I suspect he “gets” the problem raised by uniformed cops marching on St. Patrick’s Day and by anti-gay congregations getting bargain-priced space in the public schools. Taking on the organizers of the parade, the uninformed police and firefighter groups that traditionally march, and congregations that may have strong support in specific neighborhoods could be viewed as a distraction for a new mayor with an ambitious agenda. But I am in no way minimizing the significant and laudable goals de Blasio is pursuing to say that the city must also be vigilant in making certain that its resources and legal and moral authority are not used to enable discrimination.'
Despite Mayor’s Firm No, St. Pat’s Activists Persevere (Duncan Osborne, Gay City News)
'Elected officials who support de Blasio’s progressive agenda and feel some loyalty toward a fellow Democrat may be declining to sign in order to give the mayor some political cover. “It’s weird and frustrating that [Jimmy Van Bramer and Danny Dromm] haven’t signed on,” Gelman said. “They are both in new positions of power in a world with a new progressive mayor. We know that when people with a history of activism get closer to power, they pull back from making demands.”'
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