Vintage video: 1991 & 1992 St. Patrick's parade

Lest we forget where this all began, here's video from the 1991 and 1992 NYC St. Patrick's Parade. 1991 is the year ILGO marched in spite of the ban, with Mayor Dinkins, as guests of a progressive AOH contingent. The experience was so awful that ILGO refused to march again without full status -- as a contingent of out queers marching in their own community's parade. (Since then, much of the Irish and Irish American community has overcome their homophobia.)

The next year, 1992, was first of many in which our protests were attacked or quashed and criminalized by the NYPD. In 1993, the parade organizers defined the parade in court as a "private, religious procession" in order to secure the right to their "explicitly anti-gay message."

NYC police have no such right, so our protest focuses on them. The NYPD has never been neutral on the question of queers and the NYC St. Patrick's Day parade. Every year that they march, we're reminded that we only matter to them when we're forcing their hand.

Many thanks to Lisa for digitizing this footage in 2014!