Bittersweet: what's been won, and what has not

Irish Queers are delighted that the parade's ban is ended, and look forward to joining the Irish LGBTQ contingent on Fifth Avenue. We've always held that our struggle is against bigotry, though, and all the celebrating and political fist-bumping is turning that on its head.

The mayor stood yesterday surrounded by Irish Americans and announced that New York City is a beacon of inclusion. It is better now for Irish queers. But in New York City, racist police killings are still the subject of constant protest. Homeless people are being swept off of streets in gentrifying neighborhoods by police cars draped in pink "breast cancer awareness" ribbons, no less. Gentrification is causing deaths and destroying communities literally every minute.

So yes, we successfully pushed the Parade Committee into ending a policy that was embarrassing them. But to paint the city "inclusive" with that small brush is to conveniently forget what's really happening here, and to use Irish LGBTQ people as your tool.

The mayor's press conference showed just how much can be papered over with a victory.

Some claimed the victory was won by putting the kettle on. Decades of protest and pressure didn't do it, just queers and bigots talking lovingly to each other.

A Parade Committee member lauded the end of the ban with deluded, Islamophobic nonsense about how "our Judeo-Christian beliefs" are what ended the ban, and "the West is about inclusion!" No one on the mayor's stage uttered a word of objection. (Update: we've been asked to note that attendees on that stage who objected felt unable to interrupt the Mayor's press conference to say so. The Mayor did not object.)

Nor are we allowed any accounting for the still-sitting members of the parade committee who enthusiastically supported the parade throughout its ban on Irish LGBTQ groups, and dismissed and degraded the protests. But we're supposed to stay grateful and quiet in case we upset the new "unity."

We fought 25 years for this victory. We don't want it misused. The NYC Irish community still has its progressives and it still has its bigots. NYC has its moments of inclusion, and its deep traditions of violent exclusion. We gladly celebrate the end of the parade's ban on Irish LGBTQ marchers. We don't agree to forget what hasn't ended.

(Originally posted 3/4/16)

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Thanks and goodbye to Brian Friel

Brian Friel, by Colin Davidson

"For the late playwright the past and our images of it were slippery and treacherous. Truth lay not in public facts but in private fictions."

Read Fintan O'Toole: The Truth According to Brian Friel (10/2/15)

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WE WON!

OMG!!!! We seriously won.

We are happy and relieved to announce that, after 25 years of struggle, we have won! The NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade has dropped its bigoted ban: an Irish LGBTQ contingent will finally march with its own banner in the parade next March 17th.

From the beginning, our demand has been for an Irish LGBTQ contingent to march behind their own banner saying who they are, like all other contingents. Today’s decision to invite the Lavender and Green Alliance does just that!

This is a victory for the grassroots organizing, civil disobedience, and street protest of the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization and its successor, Irish Queers. Protests held the line year after year where politics constantly failed. It’s also a victory for our beautiful queer and Irish community of support, stretching from New York City to Ireland and beyond.

The parade issue has never just been about LGBTQ people. Irish people’s struggles are part of our identity: challenges to religious bigotry, demands for women’s rights, Irish republicanism, and struggles against racism in New York and Ireland are irreducible parts of the Irish experience. Irish queers have often been at the forefront of those struggles. We are proud of the complexity of our lives and histories.

The desire to march and the protests against exclusion began as part of Irish queer people’s work to stem the homophobia-fueled tide of AIDS deaths, to push back on the power of the church in Ireland, and to end the pretense that Irish queers are not a central part of Irish culture and politics. Even as other battles were won, the parade’s ironclad combination of bigotry, religion, money, and city politics made it a long holdout against justice. We are tired but happy to see the end of it.

Our thanks: we’re thankful to the many ordinary New Yorkers who supported us over the last 25 years, as well as the many elected official who refused to march in the parade while we were left out. We’re thankful for David Dinkins and others who made real, tangible tries at giving Irish queer people their rightful place in the parade. And we’re grateful to and proud of the original members of the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization – who were also part of ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, and other important queer activist forces – who laid the groundwork for this victory.

We look forward to marching up Fifth Avenue with our community!

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Watching Ireland's gay marriage referendum from queer NYC

Photo: mashable.com

Along with the rest of the world, we're watching Ireland today for the marriage referendum. We're not big on marriage… gay marriage in the US has been used as a way to take apart the queer movement that sees gender, race, class, health care, housing, policing, and corporate power as all part of the same web.

But...

Ireland is another place.

• In Ireland, the campaigning around the referendum has turned up some really intense homophobia, and we hope today's vote shows a victory over that.
• Conservative religion and church power in Ireland have been challenged so importantly and beautifully in the past decade or so -- today's vote is another huge challenge, and that's unquestionably fabulous.
• The NO campaign has tried to portray African and other migrants in Ireland as religious, conservative, and homophobic in an ugly racist fashion that mirrors how Western churches have been pushing homophobic laws in African states. Migrants have spoken out against the NO campaign's racism, and against homophobia. Today's YES vote will turn that racism on its head, we hope.
• The YES campaign has been extremely white (not to mention full of images of queers as just regular folks, which is different in Ireland than here, but not so different...) We hope today's YES vote will make space for queers to be queer again, rather than normal.

 Good luck to Ireland from NYC Irish Queers.

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Op-ed in the Irish Echo -- Un-burying Irish queer lives

The Irish Echo has been running letters and opinion pieces challenging the NYC parade organizers to catch up with Irish culture, and drop their ridiculous ban. The miserableness of letting NBC gay employees march, but not Irish LGBTQ groups, is noted. Larry Kirwan wrote a particularly nice piece last week.

It's been impossible to post links to those pieces because the paper is not really online, but some clips are here.

Today the Irish Echo printed an Irish Queers op-ed. Given the effort to silence Irish Queers and sanitize queer Irish history, we really appreciate it! Here is the original version, which includes a few bits of history that didn't make it into the Echo.

Maybe you remember: the early 1990s were a time of queer political rising, much of which was centered in New York. I was growing up in New York then but I didn’t know much about it. When ACT UP protested Cardinal O’Connor’s campaign against condoms, I was in ninth grade about 40 blocks away, oblivious. A year later the Irish Lesbian & Gay Organization marched in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, unwelcomed by the parade committee but invited by a breakaway AOH Division 7. ILGO, joined by Mayor David Dinkins, were assaulted and taunted all along the parade route. I did hear about that. My grandmother had given me a t-shirt and I’d been wearing it to shreds – it said Life’s Too Short Not To Be Irish! On the back of it, in pearlescent fabric paint, I lettered it “I.L.G.O.” It was just in solidarity. Grown people tittering and panicking over the gays, and then bullying them on the street! I was indignant. Our English teacher, Kathleen somebody, raised her eyebrows high as I passed her in the hallway. That was the extent of my participation in the New York queer explosion of those years.

I landed in Belfast in 1994. I’d dropped out of college and needed to go somewhere. My family had roots in the North. By then I had come out myself. ACT UP, ILGO, and the Lesbian Avengers – all home to queer Irish émigrés who had worked in republican and pro-choice and feminist movements at home in the 1980s – had been churning out the queer Zeitgeist. Although I missed it in New York, I had finally caught it in college. Knowing nothing about the Irish queer political currents that carried me, I arrived in Belfast a queer activist.

Queer organizing in Belfast was small, constrained by everything from the Troubles to religion to the permanent absence of privacy. There was no queer group at Queen’s University, where I was enrolled; there had been one, it seemed, but no one would lend their name as a contact and it fell apart. I called a meeting, and the cast began to assemble. There was a young waif from Lurgan, always seen in his pancake makeup, bristling as joyfully with contempt for authority as with love for a crowd of laughing queers parading down the street toward Lavery’s. (He’s still my beloved favorite.) A tired man from West Belfast had had and was still having a very rough time. He usually came around with a younger friend, both of whom were always in battle over housing, always recently bashed and bruised. There was a great woman who – to my happiness – embraced the idea of direct action. She went on to be a union organizer. There were drummers, waitresses, revolutionaries, zine-makers, and more. It was a terrific crowd.

When the term ended and I was leaving, again no one would lend their name to the group. We brainstormed. We eureka’d: a telephone number without a name was just as good, as long as someone could always answer it. A telephone needed to be somewhere – we needed a space. We could do that. If we disbanded now, no worries at all. We’d gather our resources and meet back up in a year, and then we would make it happen.

I came home. Giuliani was mayor, Bratton was police commissioner, and together they were attacking poor people, people of color, people with AIDS, and any activists who protested. This particular time in Ireland – on the heels of feminism, the frustrated abortion rights movement, and the ongoing power of the Catholic church; and in the North, following the Hunger Strikes and Save Ulster from Sodomy – saw many politicized queers exiled to New York. Here they had formed Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization, joined ACT UP, and cofounded the Lesbian Avengers. ACT UP was at a fever pitch trying to build and protect public supports for people with AIDS, and fight the biases used to justify letting them die. The Lesbian Avengers were challenging the erasure of lesbians from history and school curricula, with the slogan “I was a lesbian child.” ILGO had decided it should march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, the biggest celebration in the world of Irishness and the Irish diaspora experience. All three groups shared the logic that making queers invisible did violence both to the past and literally, daily, to queers. The parade organizers, representing the closed, church-bound Ireland from which they had come, could not bring themselves to admit that Irish queers were real, much less a central part of Irish life and history. The parade had become a flashpoint for struggles over queerness, religion, policing, immigrant community politics, and the City’s complicity in homophobia and violence. In truth, Irish politics and queer politics had never been separate; only the connections obscured. Now the ties were laid absolutely bare.

I went to an ILGO meeting early in 1995 to ask whether ILGO could help fundraise for a queer space in Belfast. It’s a joke now, that memory; fundraising was never going to happen, ILGO was not that kind of girl. But I was drawn in. The meetings were more than planning sessions. They were multigenerational in-gatherings of queers that taught politics. They broke with good manners in the face of crisis that was killing queers. They rejected the idea that dialogue and demands always had to be reasonable, and that peaceful activism couldn’t express rage toward people who were responsible for terrible things. They taught collectivism, building ideas and plans together, sharing responsibility, and passing along skills, difficult as the meetings often were. They taught that it was important and possible to do things without funding – we never stopped hearing that the Lesbian Herstory Archives bought its Brooklyn townhouse with $1 and $5 donations mailed in from lesbians everywhere – and that queer groups especially always had people with an incredible range of experience, skills and access. Most critically, they taught that it was possible to do things that sounded impossible: add queer history and sex ed to the NYC public school curriculum, or force the US government to invent better medications for HIV. (No one dreamed it would be easier to make the US government deal with AIDS and homophobia than to get an Irish gay group into the Irish parade.) Later, when I’d left that space, the exact same things felt less possible; it had been a communal effect.

In 1997 I was in Belfast again, as promised. I’d raised no money, but had bought boxes and boxes of used and remaindered books from queer shops. I started meeting my old friends for coffee, and they found other people to join in. We deliberately talked about the community space project as if it were already happening. (That was advice from Dermot Burke, who had opened An Béal Bocht in Riverdale a few years before. It was fantastic advice.) We made a primitive website announcing the project, and put up signs. More and more Belfast queers came to planning meetings. There were more musicians and more waitresses, social workers and civil servants, an East Belfast taxi driver, a witch, a student union president, a disproportionate number of Jews, students, more revolutionaries, a farmer, and many, many queers without an occupation. Before long the whole thing was real.

Queer Space opened in January 1998, in a space rented with a small loan, at the bottom of Botanic Avenue. On a crowded pre-opening workday we painted it purple, and someone drew a mural in the style of Keith Haring. We set up a coffee pot and a donation basket. Two women from the Shankill took on the task of keeping both full. Emma Donaghue sent a set of her novels to Queer Space that week, and we unboxed them along with the tattered books I’d brought over. We hung a bit of handkerchief art painted by a queer republican prisoner. Two West Belfast women delivered a huge amount of comfortable furniture. We were home.

Queer Space was intensively modeled on the direct action collectivism of the New York groups. To publicize the opening, we sent a press release; the reporter called Ian Paisley for comment, and the article generated a short controversy. In that way our publicity was taken care of and visitors streamed in. We made a mission statement and rules by consensus, and settled on the name Queer Space after hours of debate in a packed room. We took up direct action, wheatpasting Belfast with signs about lesbians, protesting Newt Gingrich’s visit to North Belfast, convening queers and Asian immigrants who had started to come under attack, and truly I can’t remember what else. The coffee box paid the rent, and it paid back the start-up loan less than a year after Queer Space opened its doors.

When Matthew Shepard was killed and queers in New York City were standing off against riot police on horseback, I came home. Some of the other Queer Space folk moved on to more official politics, especially when the Good Friday Agreement made queers a protected minority. Queer Space carries on these 16 years later. I would claim that it changed everything in Belfast; that it opened up possibilities at a time when people were ready for a change, and other stars were aligning too. Queer Space still turns out Belfast queers for antiracist action, most recently in support of Anna Lo, the Stormont MLA hounded out of office by anti-Chinese racism. Queer Space always comes out for Irish Queers on St. Patrick’s Day parade protests, although Belfast queers are incredulous that we’re still not allowed to march. Funny how the tables have turned.

The story of Irish queers and the parade is really the story of the transit between Ireland and New York of ideas about liberation. It’s the story of how Irishness hasn’t been only Catholic or white or male, nor especially polite, nor limited to venues marked “Irish.” These are true and important stories whether anyone likes them or not. When the parade exclusion comes up, we’re often told we’re not really part of the Irish community, as if it’s that – rather than homophobia – that keeps us out. It’s a pitiful attempt at diversion, but there’s something in it. After two decades of being shoved out of Irish history by the New York parade, why at all would Irish LGBTQ folk stick around the official Irish American community? We have not. Our communities don’t do dinner dances, nor play golf, nor elect Irish American candidates to office. Just as queers have made their own spaces forever, we make our own worlds here. They are Irish worlds in spite of begrudgers’ wishes to the contrary. The transit between queer Ireland and queer New York is as vibrant as ever. Look for it.

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A different conversation in the Irish Echo...

The Irish Echo isn't online in any accessible way, but there's been a pretty rational and supportive conversation happening there about the sad parade sadness.

Here are some clips:

So many miles, so many changes

by Larry Kirwan, 11/18/14

“Where once Irish embassy and consulate officials preferred the lace-curtain certainties of D.C. and NYC, now they travel nationwide to festivals and cultural events, as willing to listen as to lecture. And still I feel that a certain potential is unrealized – and I’m not talking about investment in Ireland, or boosting tourism; no, rather a meeting of minds, or even more importantly perhaps, a union of hearts between the home country and the Diaspora…

“Irish America is often seen to be rigid and static. Nothing could be further from the truth. The social changes of the last few years have been startling: legalized gay marriage is sweeping the states along with a general forbearance, if not total, acceptance of this alternate life-style. But then there’s always been a latent Libertarian streak in American culture that encourages people to be what they are.

“How odd then that cosmopolitan New York City should provide the one major issue with which Irish Americans can be whipped every year. Though there was initial relief on both sides of the Atlantic when the LGBT group from NBC was invited to march in the 2015 St. Patrick’s Day parade, it has since come to be seen for what it is – a short-term effort to stop the hemorrhaging of sponsorship...

“We can argue ‘til the cows come home about Catholic doctrine and who should or shouldn’t march, but it’s time to put all that behind us and use plain and unvarnished logic…

“We’re a big people, we handled Know-Nothings and the tragedy of 9/11; we can take cultural change in our stride, and in a couple of years both the Irish in Ireland and Irish America will look back and wonder what the fuss was all about.”

 -------------

Letter ("Lost the Plot") 10/21/14

"One has to wonder if years of marching to the sound of bagpipes has taken its toll on the hearing and senses of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee for its current decision to allow OUT@NBCUniversal to march in the 2015 St. Patrick’s Day parade would seem to indicate that they are certainly tone deaf and addled.

That an LGBT group would march in the NYC parade was a moral, never mind pragmatic inevitability, and it is not my intention to question that. If the decision was made to allow an Irish or Irish American LGBT group to march many of us would breathe a sigh of relief…

However, in its continued impersonation of the Keystone Cops, the parade committee has thrown the baby out with the bath water… the parade has now become “Irish Optional” with participation and placement up for sale…

Meanwhile, groups that are Irish American the other 364 days of the year… [are] pushed to the back of the parade to march up empty streets and past an empty reviewing stand as the committee has long since retreated to a warm room where they can pat each other on the back over a cocktail.

The NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade committee has lost the plot… They have “taken the soup” and have sold their soul, and the parade, to corporate sponsors.

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Irish/queer communities to Mayor & NYC Council Speaker: the ban is not lifted, keep the pressure on!

Mayor deBlasio & Speaker Mark-Viverito:
Keep up the boycott of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade until Irish LGBTQ groups can march under their own banner.

Oct. 9, 2014

Dear Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito,

Last year, your public boycott of the anti-gay NYC St. Patrick's Day parade finally paved the way for corporate sponsors to drop the parade. Their departure created pressure on NBC, one of the last remaining sponsors and the broadcaster of the parade, who put pressure on the parade organizers to finally end their ban on Irish LGBTQ groups.

Instead of that pressure leading to Irish LGBTQ groups taking their rightful place in the community's parade, OUT@NBCUniversal has jumped into the space it created. OUT@NBCUniversal is the gay employee/marketing group of the parade's sponsor. The Irish LGBTQ community is still excluded from the parade. The “lifting of the ban” is a sham.

Parade organizers have said that Irish LGBTQ groups may “apply” to march in future St. Patrick’s Day Parades from 2016 on, claiming that there is no room for another group in 2015. This is the same ruse they used in 1991 when they wanted to exclude the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization. When Mayor Dinkins called their bluff and offered to expand the march to allow ILGO in, the organizers came out in the open with their anti-gay reasons for excluding them. This year, when Irish LGBTQ groups applied, parade organizers quickly declared that applications were closed. In the fallout from this gay-panic response, the Catholic League also dropped out of the 2015 march, leaving the parade short of one large contingent. As before, parade organizers simply refuse to let Irish LGBTQ groups march in the newly-opened space.

State and national LGBTQ advocacy groups, as well as groups in Ireland, are supporting the demand for Irish LGBTQ groups to march openly and freely, rather than seeking to march themselves or supporting OUT@NBCUniversal's participation.

Irish LGBTQ groups have also asked OUT@NBCUniversal to withdraw from the parade until Irish LGBTQ groups are part of the parade.

We write to ask that you continue to publicly boycott the parade until Irish LGBTQ groups are accepted into the line of march, and march openly, as full and respected members of the Irish American community.

Because the parade organizers have made misleading claims like “gays are welcome to march, just not to be identified” and now “the ban is lifted, but only for NBC employees”, it's important to be clear about what constitutes inclusion. Irish LGBTQ groups must be able to march just like other contingents: with the group name on a banner identifying the contingent as Irish LGBTQ people. Last year in Boston, parade organizers tried to negotiate with an LGBTQ contingent to march under the word “equality.” But the organizers refused to allow a banner to say “LGBT” or “gay”, as if those were dirty words. So the LGBTQ group rightly declared that parade organizers were not actually willing to lift the ban, and they refused to march. New York City also cannot accept such pretenses at inclusion.

We deeply appreciate your support. Please be in touch with your response, or if we can answer any questions.

Sincerely,

Gaby Cryan, Emmaia Gelman, & J.F. Mulligan

Irish Queers

Kate Barnhart, Executive Director           

New Alternatives for LGBT Homeless Youth

Mary E. Bartholomew, Esq.

Sandy Boyer

Rev. Pat Bumgardner

Metropolitan Community Church - NY

Suzy Byrne

Leslie Cagan

Kailin Callaghan, Lead Organizer

Rockaway Wildfire

Fidelma Carolan, Regional Officer (N. Ireland)

UNISON

Kelly Cogswell, Author of Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger

Michael Czaczkes, President

Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn

Kara Davis, Queer Activist

Bill Dobbs, Gay Civil Libertarian

Erin M. Drinkwater, Executive Director

Brooklyn Community Pride Center

Ronnie Eldridge, Former New York City Councilmember

Jennifer Flynn, Executive Director

VOCAL-NY

Kathleen Gaul

Community Leader at TUSLA, Ireland

Emily Jane Goodman, New York State Supreme Court Justice, Ret.

Marie Honan

Tony Hoffmann, President, Village Independent Democrats*

Stephanie Hsu, Secretary

New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)

Andy Humm and Ann Northrop, Co-Hosts

Gay USA

Esther Kaplan

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

Marjorie Dove Kent, Executive Director

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

SL Korn, Queer Activist

Gareth Lee,

Queer Space Collective Belfast

Bertha Lewis, Executive Director

Black Institute

Mark Libkuman, Open Flows Community Technology Cooperative

Scott Long, Human Rights Activist

Amanda Lugg, Director of Advocacy

African Services Committee

Alan Levine, Civil Rights Attorney

Father Bernárd Lynch, London, Chair of Camden LGBT Forum

Anne Maguire, ILGO

Eileen Markey, Writer

Malachy McCourt

Lucy McDiarmid

Matthew McMorrow, Manager of Government Affairs

Empire State Pride Agenda

Zenaida Mendez, President

National Organization for Women-NYS

Megan Mulholland

QUEEROCRACY

Dr Tina O'Toole, Founder member of LINC Cork

University of Limerick, Ireland

Pauline Park, Executive Director

Queens Pride House

Edward Pass

Allen Roskoff, President

Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club

Sarah Schulman, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, City University of New York-College of Staten Island

Arthur Z. Schwartz, President of Advocates for Justice and Democratic District Leader for Greenwich Village

Tom Shanahan, Civil Rights Attorney

Ailbhe Smyth, LGBT Rights Campaigner
Former Head of Women's Studies and Senior Lecturer, University College Dublin (UCD)

Brad Taylor

Zephyr Teachout, former candidate for Governor, Professor Fordham Law School, and author of Corruption in America

Jay Toole

Jay’s House

Andy Velez

John Voelcker

Urvashi Vaid, Senior Fellow, Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, Columbia Law School*

Maxine Wolfe, Professor Emerita, City University Graduate School

Joan Wile, Author, and Founder, Grandmothers Against the War

Tim Wu, Candidate for Lieutenant Governor/Professor Columbia Law School

Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel

Lesbian Herstory Archive

MIX NYC: Queer Experimental Film Festival

Queer Nation NY

*Asterisk indicates organization listed for identification purposes only.

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Heady days. Change ahead?

Is Irish Queers' long, cold winter about to warm up?

PSNI have just been disinvited from marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade by community outcry.

Heineken just pulled their sponsorship because of the parade's homophobia.

Sam Adams Brewery have similarly pulled their sponsorship from the Boston parade.

St. Patrick's Day parades are going off all over the world and making a big deal of their inclusiveness, their refusal of homophobia. As if to say Hellooooo New York?

The Taoiseach is in New York City and is getting no peace, as the calls for him to stand up for Irish LGBTQ people keep coming.

About a dozen LGBTQ and police accountability groups are set for the press conference and protest at the parade -- a show of solidarity and united purpose that we haven't seen in a good few years, because people get cyclically sick and tired of banging their heads against the unflinchingly bigoted parade committee.

No one who reads a newspaper in New York or Ireland could mistake the parade for an Irish celebration, in spite of some of the homophobes' efforts to recast their religious bigotry as "just not being all about gayness."

The calls for change are getting louder, and the evasions getting more and more pretzel-like. Could it be that the facades are falling altogether? That would be... such a relief.

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"Dear Enda": Irish LGBTQ groups call on the Taoiseach to break bigoted rules.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/03/13/dear-enda-2/

Dear Enda

Admin at 10:02 am March 13, 2014

[Enda Kenny at the New York St Patrick's Day parade, and a LGBT pin]

We the undersigned wish to express our strong concerns regarding your proposed participation in the St Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City. By singling out openly LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) groups for exclusion from the parade, the organisers are sending out a message of discrimination and intolerance towards a section of the community and diaspora who deserve to have their contribution to the global Irish family celebrated and recognised on the same basis as everyone else.

It has been claimed, disingenuously, that because no group is allowed to display overtly political banners, the prohibition on LGBT people depicting any sign or symbol that would identify them as openly lesbian or gay is not discriminatory.

This is a claim that our identities are inherently political, which is false. Our organisations are first and foremost about community and visibility, not any political beliefs. The many other groups who make up the Irish-American community are all allowed to march under banners identifying who they are so we are clearly being subjected to a discriminatory double standard.

You gave a very welcome personal vow last November to actively campaign for what you describe as the ‘equality issue of gay marriage’ in next year’s referendum. You are also on record as stating that you are “proud to stand here as a public representative, a Taoiseach who happens to be a Catholic but not a Catholic Taoiseach. A Taoiseach for all of the people, that’s my job”. These were crucially important statements about the kind of Ireland you envision. You have an opportunity to serve as an ambassador for these same modern and inclusive values, ones which are shared by the vast majority of Irish people, at home and abroad.

Therefore, we strongly urge you to decline to march in the St Patrick’s Day Parade in New York next week – an honourable stance adopted by the city’s Mayor, Bill De Blasio, and the New York City Council. The exclusionary policies of the organisers are completely at odds with the statements you have made around these issues.  If, however, withdrawal at this stage is problematic, we ask that you wear the rainbow-flag lapel-pin [above] as a sign of solidarity with the Irish and Irish-American LGBT communities.

Where we are banned from marching and representing ourselves, our organisations and our community, you can act as our representative, our “Taoiseach for all of the people”, and show New York, Ireland and the world the values of our proud, inclusive and modern Ireland, that draws strength from our traditions but has dispensed with the damaging prejudices of the past.

LGBT Noise
National LGBT Federation (NXF)
Marriage Equality
Gay Switchboard Ireland
INTO LGBT Teachers Group
Atheist Ireland
Dundalk Outcomers
Union Of Students In Ireland (USI)
SIPTU LGBTQ
BeLonG To Youth Services
ShoutOut
LGBT Lawyers Association of Ireland
Trans Student Network Alliance
Action For Russia
Senator Katherine Zappone and Dr Ann Louise Gilligan
Senator David Norris
Senator Averil Power
Panti Bliss – Rory O’Neill
John Halligan TD
Clare Daly TD
Ailbhe Smyth, Feminist campaigner

Add yours below if you wish.

FIGHT!

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Irish govt reps give NYC bigots a stern message!

Irish Parliamentarians call for inclusion of LGBT organisations and banners in NY St. Patricks Day Parade

 http://t.co/5K4Iy5QNEX

A cross party message of support has been sent by Irish parliamentarians calling for the inclusion of LGBT banners and organisations in the New York St. Patricks Day Parade.

Deputy John Halligan (Member of Parliament – Independent); Senator Averil Power (Fianna Fail Party) Senator Ivana Bacik (Labour Party) Deputy Jerry Buttimer (Member of Parliament – Fine Gael) recorded a message in front of the Irish Parliament Building, Leinster House this week.

The message refers to Ireland as a diverse and inclusive society and calls on for the inclusion of LGBT banners and organisations in the NY St. Patricks Day Parade in Manhattan.  The deputies and Senators send greetings to the St. Pat’s for All Parade taking place in Queens on March 2 - this alternative event includes and welcomes all who wish to march.

This is the first time in 23 years of exclusion of LGBT organisations from the NY parade that a cross party grouping of parliamentarians have made such a statement.  A government minister has refused to attend the parade this year in protest at the exclusion.  Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny has said he will march in the parade if he is in New York.
--------

Excerpted transcript:

As TDs and Senators from the four largest groupings in Leinster House, we are committed to full equality for LGBT people.

We are proud of the huge progress that Ireland has made toward becoming a fully inclusive republic that cherishes all the children of the nation equally.

And we strongly believe that the diversity and inclusiveness of today's Ireland should be reflected in all St Patrick's Day festivities at home, and aboad.

Everyone should be able to participate in all events, irrespective of their sexual orientation, gender, creed, or color.

Bacik: We believe that it is wrong to exclude Irish American LGBT banners and members of the Irish American LGBT community from the main New York City St Patrick's Day parade.

Power: It is discriminatory, unfair, and completely out of touch with the values of modern Ireland.

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Round-up: "Irish grapple with gay rights in New York and Ireland"

Sometimes the BBC gets it right:
Irish grapple with gay rights in New York and Ireland, 18 February 2014

Unlike his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will sit out this year's St Patrick's Day parade

Gay rights has become a subject of intense debate in Irish communities on both sides of the Atlantic this month. It is perhaps a reflection of the Catholic Church's position on homosexuality and the rapidly changing perceptions of gay equality in the West.

We'll start in New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he will be sitting out the city's massive St Patrick's Day parade next month because the event organisers do not allow gay Irish-American groups to openly participate.

For homosexual rights organisations, and many of the city's left-wing activists, it was yet another sign that Mr de Blasio is living up to his reputation as an unabashed liberal crusader, in contrast to his predecessor, multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who governed with the firm backing of the city's establishment.

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Conflating ignorance and violence against gay people with holding different views on same-sex marriage is far from reasonable”

Michael CliffordIrish Examiner

"Hooray for Bill!" writes Matthew Breen in Out magazine. "It's a mean-spirited exclusion, and the organizers should once again be ashamed of themselves. We're glad to see de Blasio is giving it a miss."

Others expressed some disappointment that Mr de Blasio didn't prohibit city employees, including police officers, from marching in uniform. In an open letter to the mayor, a group of gay rights groups, former and current elected officials and city residents wrote:

The presence of uniformed police and firefighters in such a procession sends a clear signal to LGBTQ New Yorkers that these personnel, who are charged with serving and protecting all New Yorkers, do not respect the lives or safety of LGBT people.

The decision was quickly condemned by critics on the right.

"De Blasio's refusal to participate in the parade out of supposed solidarity with homosexual activists signals a hierarchy of political priorities," writes Gregg Campbell of the Tea Party News Network. "It appears obvious that de Blasio is more than willing to offend the city's Irish population by snubbing their parade in order to further honor the gay community."

Bill Donahue of the conservative Catholic League said the event should be about Irish pride, not politics:

The great myth has always been that the parade is anti-gay: in previous years, I have gone on the radio inviting gays to march with the Catholic League, provided they do not draw attention to themselves or to some extrinsic cause.

Panti Bliss gives a speech about oppression and homophobia

Cahir O'Doherty in the New York-based Irish Central website counters that it's important for gay Irish-Americans to be able to carry a banner in the parade "because if you are not seen you are not heard. And when you are neither seen nor heard, bad things can happen to you without anyone noticing. Gay people know this, but apparently quite a few others need to be reminded."

The parade controversy is making waves across the Atlantic, as well, where Irish government officials are split on whether to participate or join Mr de Blasio's boycott. Irish Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton, who will be in New York on St Patrick's Day, has announced she will not march. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, on the other hand, has said he will travel to New York to attend.

The parade is just a blip compared to the larger debate going on in Ireland over gay rights, as a national referendum on same-sex marriage is scheduled for next year. The issue caught fire earlier this month after prominent Irish drag queen Panti Bliss called two journalists and a Catholic lobby group "homophobic" during a television interview.

The Irish national broadcaster, RTE, paid $116,000 (£70,000) to settle defamation charges stemming from the interview, prompting Panti (Rory O'Neill when not in drag) to take to the stage at a Dublin theatre and offer an impassioned speech about feeling oppressed as a gay man in Ireland and the meaning of homophobia.

"For the last three weeks I have been lectured to by heterosexual people about what homophobia is and about who is allowed to identify it," he said. "And so now Irish gay people, we find ourselves in this ludicrous situation where are not only not allowed to say publically what we feel oppressed by, we're not even allowed to think it because the very definition, our definition, has been disallowed by our betters."

He continues: "Now it turns out that gay people are not victims of homophobia, homophobes are the victims of homophobia."

Michael Clifford in the Irish Examiner disagrees. He writes that just because you're against gay marriage doesn't mean you're a homophobe - any more than President Barack Obama was a homophobe up until a few years ago, when he came out in support of gay marriage.

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The thing about poison is that it's indiscriminate”

Cahir O'DohertyIrish Central

"Conflating ignorance and violence against gay people with holding different views on same sex marriage is far from reasonable," he writes. "And projecting an image of arrogance, or intolerance to opposing views, is not the way to campaign" for marriage equality.

The Irish Times' Fintan O'Toole, on the other hand, thinks it's just a matter of time before "an honest belief that it is OK for the law to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples" is considered homophobia.

He continues:

It's good that most of those who oppose gay marriage love and respect and cherish individual gay people, though they should hardly expect a pat on the back for not hating their fellow citizens. But they need to recognise that that's not enough. The whole point of the law is that it's not about giving people equal status because you like them. It's about freeing people from subjection to the arbitrariness of other people's benevolence.

The Independent's Ian O'Doherty writes that the contentious back-and-forth risks alienating the majority of the population in Ireland, who "don't really care that much one way or the other".

"They are the ones who have a healthy dose of contempt for the strident, tedious militants who have hijacked the debate from the original participants and are duking it out in an increasingly ridiculous war of words," he writes.

Back on the US side of the ocean, Irish Central's O'Doherty wonders why the gay rights issue has so divided the Irish community.

"I have been personally shocked by the deep contempt that's unleashed by some within the Irish community over Irish gay groups," he writes. "I wonder at the intensity of it.

"Don't people realize that it could be your own kids that you're blackguarding? Or your neighbor's kids? Or your niece or your nephew? The thing about poison is that it's indiscriminate."

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In the press: Ireland rises against the NYC St. Patrick's parade and "time warp" homophobia

[These are in chronological order. Don't miss the broadcast clip at bottom!]

'Patrick's Day is not about sexuality' - Taoiseach Enda Kenny
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/patricks-day-is-not-about-sexuality-taoiseach-enda-kenny-30021187.html
"The Taoiseach came under fire in the Dail for agreeing to participate in the famous Fifth Avenue Procession - which has been criticised for its ban on posters promoting LGBT rights...Mr Kenny was asked by People Before Profit TD if he would wear a badge symbolising the LGBT community. He responded by stating he would be happy to wear a shamrock, which he says symbolises Irishness."

Split deepens in Irish government over taking part in New York parade
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Split-deepens-in-Irish-government-over-taking-part-in-New-York-parade-.html
"The split in the Irish government over attitudes to marching in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York has deepened with Deputy Leader and Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore backing the decision of his cabinet minister colleague Joan Burton not to march. He is now at odds with his leader Enda Kenny, who has made it clear that he will march on the day and that the rules of the parade are a matter for the organizers."

Why do Irish LGBT's need a banner in the St. Pat's Parade?
http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/Why-do-Irish-LGBTs-need-a-banner-in-the-St-Pats-Parade.html
"Many readers have asked this week why Irish gay groups want to carry an identifying banner in the Saint Patrick's Day Parade in New York? Here's the short answer: because if you are not seen you are not heard. And when you are neither seen nor heard, bad things can happen to you without anyone noticing. Gay people know this, but apparently quite a few others need to be reminded. As the increasingly thuggish moves in Russia and Uganda and Nigeria have been reminding us for months now, legally enforced silence is biggest international enemy of LGBT rights."

NY parade is perfect time for Enda to take a stand:
The time-warp views of our Yankee cousins on homosexuality need to be thrown off the float
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/ny-parade-is-perfect-time-for-enda-to-take-a-stand-30013867.html
"AS SAINT Patrick's Day approaches, and Enda readies the bowl of shamrock, it's important that the 'brand Ireland' gospel is spread throughout America. And so, in a way, you could say that the spat over gays and the St Patrick's Day parade in New York has come at just the right time."

Secret behind who really runs the NYC Saint Patrick’s Day Parade
Spoiler alert: it's not much of a secret.
http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/Secret-behind-who-really-runs-the-NYC-Saint-Patricks-Day-Parade-.html#ixzz2tJdSzoug

Why New York mayor is right to cold shoulder this St Patrick's parade 
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/lindy-mcdowell/why-new-york-mayor-is-right-to-cold-shoulder-this-st-patricks-parade-30001335.html
"Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who claims Irish ancestry (doesn't everyone?), got around the parades issue cutely enough by attending two in one day. The main one which bans what Mr Donohue would see as gays "drawing attention to themselves," and another elsewhere in the city which welcomes them, rainbow flags and all... De Blasio's stance...has once again turned the international spotlight on a ban that would appear to be totally at odds with a 21st century city that so prides itself on open-mindedness and liberalism. It says something that Vladimir Putin would feel entirely comfortable with the current St Paddy's parade restrictions."

NY St. Patrick's parade walks alone in banning gay groups
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/NYC-St-Patricks-Day-Parade-falls-far-behind-others-on-LGBT-stance.html
"Until recent years, it was joined by the India Day Parade, the Celebrate Israel Parade, and the Chinese Lunar New Year Parade, with the annual lead-up to each celebration marked by a heated debate much like the one happening now...'Every time one of New York City's ethnic parades says yes to the LGBT community it makes it harder for the shrinking number of parades, like St. Patrick's Day, that have said no, to continue to say no.'"

Burton criticised by colleagues for her decision to boycott New York parade
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/burton-criticised-by-colleagues-for-her-decision-to-boycott-new-york-parade-29996899.html
"Ms Burton yesterday said she would not be attending the parade because of its exclusion of gay and lesbian groups... Taoiseach Enda Kenny refused to take the same course and said he intends to march in next month's event... Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer, who last week spoke of being beaten and spat at for being gay, said he would prefer it if Mr Kenny did not take part. Social Protection Minister Joan Burton also heaped pressure on Mr Kenny by claiming that she would boycott the event until it became 'more inclusive.'"

Gay rights activists urge Taoiseach not to march in St Patrick’s Day parade: National Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Federation make plea to Enda Kenny
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/gay-rights-activists-urge-taoiseach-not-to-march-in-st-patrick-s-day-parade-1.1686829
"Olivia McEvoy, chair of the National LGBT Federation, said it would be “inappropriate and wrong” for uniformed Garda members to march in the parade as it sends out “a hugely negative message to LGBT people” and damages efforts to establish police relations with the LGBT community."

Irish Minister refuses to march in New York St Patrick’s Day Parade
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-Minister-refuses-to-march-in-New-York-St-Patricks-Day-Parade.html
'There comes a time when you have to say to the organizers we have had enough of this discrimination and division. In an ideal world, no Taoiseach (PM) or no minister should march in the parade. For me the big issue, why is the ban still there, in a progressive city like New York?'"

Buttimer would ‘prefer’ if Kenny didn’t attend New York parade
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/buttimer-would-prefer-if-kenny-didn-t-attend-new-york-parade-1.1686205

Why De Blasio made the right call on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade
http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/De-Blasio-made-the-right-call-on-the-St-Patricks-Day-Parade.html
"The world looks very different than it did in 1990 when this squabble was really getting started and crucially, so does United States federal and state law. Those who still support the continuing ban and even those who have simply grown complacent over the stalemate have failed to recognize that the nation is in a new moment, one that has long since left them behind. Some Irish observers have suggested that the mayor should have attempted to mediate the dispute. Instead of taking the unprecedented and historic step of blankly refusing to participate. He could have saved our blushes by involving himself in the argument, even though the parade organizers have given no indication they are of a mind to bring it to an end. After twenty-five years of shameful stalemate, I’m not sure what concessions these observers think he can actually win? It’s doubtful that even Senator George Mitchell could produce a new path forward."

Irish leader says he will march in New York St Patrick’s Day parade
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/Irish-leader-Enda-Kenny-will-march-in-New-York-parade-despite-boycott-appeal-from-gay-rights-groups.html

Kenny won't bow to gay pressure on St. Patrick's Day parade
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/kenny-wont-bow-to-gay-pressure-on-st-patricks-day-parade-29987710.html

Lyons says ministers should not participate in NY parade
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/lyons-says-ministers-should-not-participate-in-ny-parade-1.1683603

Beaten, spat at and harassed: Buttimer tells Dáil in homophobia debate
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/beaten-spat-at-and-harassed-buttimer-tells-dail-in-homophobia-debate-258004.html

Spat on for being gay: TDs reveal homophobia pain
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/spat-on-for-being-gay-tds-reveal-homophobia-pain-29987735.html

Gay rights groups urge Govt to boycott New York parade
http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0206/502698-gay-rights-new-york-parade/
"Speaking on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, Brian Sheehan, Director of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN), called on the Government not to take part in the event...A number of lesbian, gay and bisexual rights organisations have called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to boycott the event. Speaking on the same station, Scott de Buitléir, editor of online LGBT magazine Eile, said he hoped Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, in particular, would not participate in the parade, given his reputation among the gay community as an outspoken promoter of gay rights."

Second strike by NY Mayor de Blasio against Irish
http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/Second-strike-by-NY-Mayor-de- Blasio-against-Irish.html
Another very silly article from Niall O'Dowd (in which he publicly wishes that de Blasio would play both sides?!) but the comments section is great... "De Blasio had the perfect out on the parade, one that his predecessor Michael Bloomberg took – march in the Irish gay parade a couple of weekends before March 17, and then on Fifth Avenue on the day itself."

Mayor de Blasio makes wrong call on Patrick’s Day parade
http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/Mayor-de-Blasio-makes-wrong-call-on-Patricks-Day-parade.html#ixzz2sTaofV84
A ridiculous article in which the Irish Voice's Niall O'Dowd claims "The original gay group was the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization, formed to help gay young Irish immigrants here cope with depression and exploitation issues" and is taken to task by ILGO members in reply. Since Irish Queers members' comments didn't make it past the moderator, one wonders whether the comments will be preserved, so here are a few:

Anne Maguire
As a founding member of ILGO and someone who was involved from the beginning for many years I am, yet again, gob-smacked by this article and its myriad inaccuracies. ILGO was not formed by a bunch of "exploited" and "depressed" Irish people but quite a broad-based group of people from North and South, of various political persuasions, class backgrounds and with a wide variety of interests. I don't doubt the writer's "friend" was depressed but we formed the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization not the Irish Exploited and Depressed Gay Organization.

ILGO was not hijacked by anyone - in fact, we were cheered on, by one and all, until the parade issue got too complicated, taking you out of your comfort zone as far as gay people are concerned. So, you manufactured the falsehood of a radical coup which you regurgitate whenever this issue arises. The truth is that the original people who started ILGO, stood our ground by deciding, as a group, not to go back into the closet and if that's hardcore then bully for us!

Also, you have some nerve stating that we had no interest in Irish issues. Even if you do not believe that equality for the LGBT community is a legitimate Irish issue ILGO was full of people who did work in other areas as well as people who could not give a toss about any issue, Irish or otherwise. Rather than revising history it would serve your readers better if you got over the fact that ILGO was not what you expected, or wanted. Better still, go be a reporter and find out if the AOH is ready to change it's tune.

Niall O'Dowd
Hannah it was as a result of an article i wrote abut a young Irish gay man in difficulty that ILGO was formed. I spoke at their first meeting and heavily advertised it as I felt strongly it was needed. The pity is no such group exists today because it was taken over by some who wanted to make the parade the issue -- and they did

Paul O'Dwyer
I was at the first, and probably every, meeting of ILGO over a period of several years, and I hate to minimize your role in it, but it was not formed because of depression or isolation or exploitation or whatever it is you want to call it, or because you knew of an Irish gay person in difficulty. There were a whole variety of people involved, with a diverse range of interests, from political to social to whatever it is they wanted it to be. It was the vehemence with which so many Irish and Irish-American people and institutions expressed their hatred of gay people once we applied to march in the parade that caused us to feel exploited, depressed and isolated, and that ultimately ended up defining the group.

None of wanted the parade to be "the issue", other than that it was an institution in which we rightly felt entitled to participate fully and freely, like everyone else. It is unfortunate that you think we shouldn't have done so.

Anne Maguire
I was at the first meeting of ILGO and Mr. O'Dowd, you were not present. You did not start ILGO either - I responded to an ad in the Irish Voice newspaper as did most others present at the first meeting. You may have placed that ad but nevertheless, rewriting our history, not your's, is pretty arrogant. The parade became an issue when ILGO refused to be beaten back into the closet - I would argue that the AOH made the parade an issue and over the years it became an "issue" for all kinds of people and organizations for various reasons - your publication included. I believe you did not and do not like the idea of gay people who are not ashamed of themselves for being gay, or Irish for that matter. It's okay if we're "victims" and "in difficulty" but not okay if we're perfectly intact and able and willing to stand up for ourselves. Sadly, all these years later nothing much has changed.

[BROADCAST] Gay rights groups do not want Government representatives at New York St. Patrick’s Day parade
http://www.tv3.ie/news_sub_page.php?video_id=75850&locID=1.2.883
"Gay rights group say they don't want government representatives to attend the St. Patrick's Day parade in New York. The Taoiseach and Tanaiste had earlier claimed that they had the backing of the gay community. It's a huge story all over the United States. For the first time in 20 years, the Mayor of New York is boycotting the St. Patrick's Day parade because it bans marchers who carry gay pride [sic] signs."

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