As NYC celebrates Irish immigrants, Irish-American and NYC racial justice groups protest NYPD’s role in deporting immigrants of color

PRESS RELEASE

Despite “Sanctuary City”, groups charge that aggressive Broken Windows policing feeds immigrants to ICE – while NYPD avoids targeting white immigrants.

New York – Irish American and NYC racial justice groups protested today at the NYPD Emerald Society’s post-parade party. Protesters demanded that the NYPD stop helping federal ICE agents deport New York’s immigrants by aggressively making arrests for tiny, non-criminal infractions. Groups included Irish Queers, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Community Voices Heard, and SURJ NYC (Showing Up for Racial Justice).

“Broken Windows is a flawed policy that wrongly targets Blacks and Latinos. We call on this administration to end Broken Windows and make New York a true Sanctuary City,” said Claudia Perez, member-leader of Community Voices Heard.

As NYPD officers celebrated their Irish immigrant heritage, picketers carrying signs called them to stop victimizing current-day immigrants. NYPD union boss Ed Mullins (Seargent’s Benevolent Association) confirmed this month that NYPD officers personally want to “help ICE” by targeting immigrants for deportation, and that officers resent city policy that prevents them from performing immigration checks.

“Irish-American police officers shouldn’t forget from what and where they came.  People fleeing for a better life, fighting for their right to exist, and prevailing against tyranny is scratch-deep in their history. It’s the same struggle for immigrant and racial justice that we’re facing now,” said J.F. Mulligan of Irish Queers.

Protesters charged that, despite “Sanctuary City” rules, the NYPD is already driving the deportation of New Yorkers by arresting them for non-criminal Broken Windows offenses. New federal policy directs ICE to deport documented and undocumented immigrants who have been arrested, regardless of the outcome of the arrest.

NYPD arrests for low-level offenses overwhelmingly target communities of color. This biased policing makes immigrants of color particularly unsafe, while leaving white immigrants relatively untouched.

“Our Irish-American families mostly came to the US under desperate circumstances and were treated poorly here,” said Jennifer Hadlockof SURJ NYC.“I’m here to confront the hypocrisy of Irish-American police officers now enforcing the horrible treatment of people of color, including immigrants, through unnecessary arrests that lead to people being deported. It’s blatant white supremacy, we cannot let it go unchallenged.”

Broken Windows mandates arrests, not summonses, for littering, subwaysleeping, jaywalking, panhandling, unlicensed dogs, and other infractions.Thousands of such arrests are made weekly, but do not improve safety, according to a 2016 DOI report.

“We protested the St. Patrick's parade for decades because the Irish community is not the bigoted, hyper-religious cabal the parade portrayed. Neither is the Irish community represented by the racist NYPD, despite the historic connections,” said Mulligan. “Irish resistance against racist authority is the best of our history.”

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Date: March 17, 2017

Contact: (917) 517-3627, irishqueers@gmail.com

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Press release: Happy St. Patrick's Day, making history!

Date: March 17, 2016

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Irish Queers, making history together at the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade!

Irish Queers are delighted to be on this side of the barricades for once! We may be more at home with the circumstance than the pomp in this parade, but in this contingent we're surrounded by the NYC Irish LGBTQ community in celebration mode, which is a rare pleasure. It's also a sweet reunion of sorts, although many of us are missing: moved home to a much-changed Ireland, lost to AIDS and homophobia, or driven away by the sadness of too long a struggle. For those of us who have spent every St. Patrick's Day for the last quarter century in battle on Fifth Avenue, the bitterness is not swept away by a single day in the sun -- but today a very cold shadow lifts, and our future St. Patrick's Days are returned to us for celebration rather than protest.

Our marching is a celebration for the whole Irish community. We're joined here by supporters from the the Irish community, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising together -- a rebellion whose gift to Irish culture is a constant reference point for organizing ourselves in the face of powerful injustice, taking principled risks rather than playing it safe and wrong, setting our own terms, and refusing half-measures.

It's a celebration for the whole queer community, which is so widely familiar with bigoted figureheads collaborating with the religious right, courts, and public officials. We're especially proud to be joined here by friends from the Ugandan queer community (Freedom and Roam Uganda, the first lesbian empowerment organization in Uganda) recognizing the importance of this victory over cultural erasure; and by supporters from the many NYC LGBTQ communities who have turned out on Fifth Avenue with Irish Queers over the years.

To queer communities in Ireland, we shout a long-distance "go raibh mile maith agat" (not least for putting religious homophobia to a referendum, that was clever!) A special shout- out to our family in Queer Space Belfast, we adore you. Hope to see you all soon!

xoxox
Irish Queers NYC
http://irishqueers.blogspot.com 
@IrishQueers 

Contact: Emmaia (917) 517-3627, JF (212) 289-1101, or Gaby (718) 909-3956

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What they wore: IQ's Gaby Cryan on "Closet Case!"

Seamstress and fashion plate Gaby Cryan takes to the airwaves on "Closet Case!"
http://thebuzzmag.ca/2016/03/irish-queers-green-with-pride/

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Why we fought (This year we march! - Gay City News 3/16/17)

"This Thursday, Irish Queers will break with 25 years of protest against the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade and march up Fifth Avenue in the actual parade. Believe that we are overjoyed that we don’t have to protest anymore. As per the rules of the parade, we’ll be in “business casual attire” and will be stripped of any message besides “we’re Irish, homosexual, and finally in this @#$%^ parade.”

"...Plenty of queers have asked why we fought so long to get into a parade that 1) clearly doesn’t want us; 2) is without a doubt the dullest parade in the city; and 3) is packed full of cops and army dudes, not in a sexy uniform kind of way.

"Here’s why it mattered enough to push on for 25 years..."

 Read more: http://gaycitynews.nyc/year-march/

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Reflections on the long march to marching (Washington Blade 3/9/16)

(Photo: wnyc.org)

Read JF Mulligan's reflections on the (often inconvenient) history preceding this year's queer contingent in the St Patrick's Day parade:
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/03/09/st-pats-inclusion-at-last/

"There are many answers to why this change has come. In reality it is probably a combination of things. But let’s talk about it, hear people take responsibility and not back away or silence these narratives..."

"...Some of the many Irish values I cherish are to be contrary, to stand up for what is right, and to not be afraid when everyone else is walking down the road to stop and walk the other way."

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Writing ourselves into history.

Thanks to Maggie Lally and Lisa Fane for the photo!

Here's a photo from our best-ever evening out: a warm and friendly toast at the end of a long, bitter road. Hooray for constant friends!

Incredible as it may seem, we now have to write ourselves into history. (We will, it's all good!) There are always the deniers. New Yorks' Irish and Irish American influential homophobes spent many years denying the actual existence of Irish LGBT people, and many more years denying our role in Irish home and diaspora communities. Some might have been happy enough to admit Irish gay people existed, but Irish queers and political radicals had to be cast as outside agitators: never really Irish.

For those who never liked Irish queers, it's easiest now to pretend that the parade committee just had a change of heart. Easiest to pretend the change has nothing to do with a quarter century of protest against the smallness of imagination represented by the parade committee and its politically-wired supporters. The work of pretending away Irish queers, activism, and the gains of civil disobedience has already begun in some of the reporting on the end of the parade ban.

That's a silly pretense, but it's effective. Wherever that story sticks, it makes protest seem wrong-headed. Instead, it routes all conversations about injustice through the boardrooms and backrooms that have created the injustice in the first place. There we become people who wait for change, know our place, never question the set up, nor the foot that kicks us, as the song says.

So our work isn't done until we secure the history, and claim the victory for refusing to shut up when told, and working outside the channels of power.

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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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Irish Queers statement on John Dunleavy’s ouster

After John Dunleavy’s 25 years of being the standard-bearer for religious homophobia, Irish Queers are of course glad to see him go. Dunleavy’s contributions to the Irish community include likening Irish LGBT people to the KKK, and claiming that being openly gay is a political statement (while insisting with a straight face that the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade is not a political event.) His positions finally became untenable; it’s only incredible that it has taken so long.

The reasons behind Dunleavy’s ouster are something to celebrate. In the referendum on May 22, Ireland roundly rejected homophobia and the authority of the Catholic church to dictate Irish culture. Irish Queers and its predecessor, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization, have staged the same battle at the parade. We have posed the legacy of Irishness as a powerfully diverse set of experiences – and a history of throwing off chains – against the religious vision of Irishness as a closed, provincial identity that erases so many people’s real lives. The question of whether queers can take our place in Irish history and culture is now settled.

But the NYC St. Patrick’s Parade Committee is not led by the Irish or Irish American community. The parade is still exclusively held by the same men who enforced anti-gay bigotry over the past two decades. Their version of “inclusion” last year amounted to adding OUT@NBCUniversal instead of an Irish LGBT group. (OUT@NBC were so tightly controlled that, when asked by reporters how it felt to march, gay marchers they said they weren’t allowed to discuss it.) Who knows what exciting version of inclusion they’ll offer us this year with the addition of one more handpicked, battened-down group?

Some voices in Irish New York politics have called for parade organizers to end to the ban on “good” gays – those who have not protested, but instead participated in the fundraiser-and-mass circuit where the parade’s homophobes are welcomed. Taking that advice would be in keeping with the Parade Committee’s history of making the smallest change possible without actually opening the parade to Irish LGBT communities. But we were never in this to reform the men of the Parade Committee.

In breaking other chains, Ireland has represented itself brilliantly – from the referendum, to the rise of antiracist movements, to insisting that water is a human right. If the parade can’t catch on, it will find itself like John Dunleavy: out of time.

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Press release: At Tues. parade protest, plans to celebrate Irish LGBTQ icons, Bronx cheer for corporate sponsors

PRESS RELEASE – for immediate release

Date: March 15, 2015

Contact: Emmaia Gelman on 917-517-3627

Irish LGBTQ Protest of Exclusion Continues at 2015 NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade

Irish Queers welcome support from NYC officials & Ireland; condemn corporate sponsors.

Press Conference: Tues. March 17, 10:45am at Fifth Ave below W. 57^th St.

Protest: Tues. March 17, 11am-1pm, same location.

Irish Queers and allies will protest the exclusion of Irish LGBTQ groups from the St. Patrick's Day Parade this Tuesday, March 17 at 11am. This year’s protest will feature images of cherished figures whose Irish or Irish-American and LGBTQ identities are inseparable – all of whom would be closeted or banned by the parade organizers.

Irish Queers is proud to count on the support of Mayor de Blasio and the City Council, who have again withdrawn their participation from this year’s parade, because the parade continues to marginalize and shame Irish LGBTQ people. We’re also proud of the ongoing support for inclusion coming from Ireland – gay and straight – where New York’s bigoted parade is widely regarded as an embarrassment. 

The parade committee's admission this year of the gay/straight alliance of their corporate sponsor, NBC, is not inclusion of Irish LGBTQ groups, but more exclusion. The demand has always been for Irish LGBTQ groups to march under banners that say who we are without shame – not corporate groups, marching behind an “OUT” banner that avoids mentioning “lesbian”, “gay”, “bisexual”, or “transgender.”

“There is no logic to letting OUT@NBC march except as another way to keep Irish LGBTQ groups out,” said Gaby Cryan of Irish Queers. “The parade organizers have claimed a right to discriminate against us because they’re running it as a Catholic procession. But even the Cardinal calls it ‘a celebration of all things Irish.’”

Guinness and Heineken have joined NBC in supporting the discriminatory parade while also claiming that they oppose discrimination.

“Guinness and Heineken, after dropping their sponsorship of the antigay parade for just one year, have used NBC’s trick as an excuse to resume sponsoring it. It’s totally perverse that Heineken has offered to put money into the inclusive Queens parade as well as the antigay parade. Playing both sides harms the LGBTQ community, and adds insult to injury,” said Eustacia Smith of Irish Queers.

Irish LGBTQ groups have been fighting to take our place in our community’s parade for 25 years. We hope that next year’s parade will finally see the end of discrimination – and that corporations and others who say they support inclusion will work with the Irish LGBTQ community, rather than through back room deals.

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Statement on de Blasio boycott, Guinness, and NBC - March 3, 2015

Statement from Irish Queers and allies
March 3, 2015

We are heartened that Mayor Bill de Blasio gets that the inclusion of NBC’s corporate gay group in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade is, as he said on Sunday, “too small a change to merit a lot of us participating who have wanted to see an inclusive parade.” To end the 24-year boycott of the parade the organizers need to include identifiable Irish LGBTQ groups—who have long been welcomed in St. Patrick’s Day parades in Ireland. We are angered but not surprised that Guinness, which had long sponsored the exclusionary parade, is back in as a sponsor after a one-year hiatus.

We are appreciative that our allies—from elected officials such as Council Speaker Melisssa Mark-Viverito and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer to grassroots organizers and groups such as the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club to big LGBTQ advocacy organizations including GLAAD, the Empire State Pride Agenda, and the Anti-Violence Project—have held strong against the parade committee’s effort to divide us by admitting the NBC group.

Our message to the parade organizers is simple: Embrace your own. End the ban. Let us march with our people as who we are.

We urge Mayor de Blasio to hold fast and help end this exclusion once and for all. We will continue to boycott the parade until then and will once again protest the parade on March 17 on Fifth Avenue and W. 57th St. if a just resolution is not reached.

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What IrishCentral says, and what it means.

Photo: Niall O'Dowd's Facebook page, where he declares
himself an "expert in all things Irish and Irish American."

We've often thought of starting a section on this blog called "Why does the Irish Voice/IrishCentral  hate us now?" The publisher Niall O'Dowd, and his wife/columnist Debbie McGoldrick, have devoted a LOT of effort to dumping on us. Especially when we're winning a little on the parade issue, they inevitably print a story that talks about how we're not really part of the Irish community and don't "deserve" a spot in the parade.

We've never bothered to write those posts before. But now we're close -- really close -- to overturning the ban. And O'Dowd has predictably come for us with his claws out. So we'll take this on, hopefully just the one time.

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What he says: Irish Queers doesn't have "real standing" in the Irish community, unlike another Irish gay voice who is "preferring to continue to negotiate."

What he means: Irish Queers is the follow-on group from the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization. O'Dowd was initially supportive of the group, which he claims to have started by publishing a meet-up notice in the Irish Voice in 1990. His vision, it seems, was that New York's downtrodden Irish LGBT immigrants would find each other, form a social circle, and have no politics other than his own. What happened instead was that Irish queer immigrants -- some of whom were already politicized and none of whom was interested in crowning O'Dowd as their rescuer -- formed a social and political group. ILGO challenged the Catholic Archdiocese, the sexism and racism of the New York Irish political establishment, and the regime of brutally enforced politeness that tried to muzzle queers, Irish republicans, and other protesters.

So when O'Dowd says Irish Queers don't have standing, he means we don't have standing with him, and with the entwined business, political, and religious power brokers who run official Irish politics.

He also means that the Irish community in New York is a tiny, closed circle of people who can be brought in or pushed out -- and not the expansive, bustling community of New Yorkers who share in different aspects of Irish culture, different relationships with Ireland, and wildly different politics. He means: "I own this b****!"

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What he says: "Irish Queers is a fit-for-purpose once a year serial boycotter of the parade. Their website is an angry harangue against the parade and cops who are alleged racists. They are the Irish equivalent of Act Up."

What he means: O'Dowd knows nothing about Irish Queers that he doesn't read in the paper or on this blog, and even there we're only of interest to him when we talk about the parade. He's not interested in our work on antiracism from an Irish perspective in New York, nor our support for Irish activism on Palestine, nor activities like supporting political prisoners. But he does think we're Irish enough to be the Irish equivalent of ACT UP, so there's something. (P.S. A lot of those ungrateful ILGO queers he "saved" were also in ACT UP!)

He also means that challenging racist policing has nothing to do with Irish politics or community. Really, he thinks that!!

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What he says: "Of all people, Brendan Fay and his organization deserve to march in the parade. They have earned it over the years, staging an alternative parade in Queens, being open and inclusive and above all involved on issues outside the parade such as immigration and Northern Ireland."

What he means: There are good queers and there are bad queers. Instead of asking politely for bigots to be nice to them, bad queers confront them on the street and in the press. Instead of negotiating deals in smoky rooms, they prefer public conversations about right and wrong. Good queers go to Mass, they attend fundraisers, they preserve the sanctity of the back room deal. Good queers are grateful to O'Dowd.

He means (it seems?) that homophobia and religious bigotry would have naturally faded under the withering pressure of an alternative parade. That the 25 years of protest at the parade, and of civil disobedience in which queers laid their bodies on the line against church and NYPD violence, were rude diversions by imposters "seeking a cheap headline."

He means he wants to rewrite the history, just at the moment that we win. He wants queer challenges to the NYPD, the church, the City, and the old conservative bastions of Irish New York fade to away. In their place, he wants the story to be that asking nicely is what did the trick. Fat chance.

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Irish & LGBTQ groups, elected officials renew boycott of 2015 parade (Press release)

Photo: @IvanPer4 (Ivan Pereira, AM-NY)

PRESS RELEASE – For immediate release

Date: Feb. 17, 2015

Contact:  Emmaia Gelman, 917-517-3627, irishqueers@gmail.com

BOYCOTT OF NYC ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE CONTINUES IN 2015

Irish and LGBTQ groups and elected officials reject parade’s discrimination; secret deal with OUT@NBC leaves in place the long-standing ban on Irish LGBTQ groups.

New York – Irish and LGBTQ community groups and elected officials today announced the renewed boycott of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade in 2015. They pledged to uphold the boycott until Irish LGBTQ groups can march under their own banners on the same terms as other groups. Protests will also continue at the parade.

Last year, as the Mayor and the City Council joined the boycott and corporate sponsors withdrew, pressure mounted on the parade’s remaining sponsors, including NBC. In September, parade organizers revealed a backroom deal in which NBC's gay employee group, but no Irish LGBTQ groups, would be admitted to the parade in 2015.

Irish LGBTQ groups duly applied to march as well. In reply, parade organizers claimed there was “no room” for Irish LGBTQ groups in 2015, but they “could apply in future years.” But parade organizers now reiterate that Irish LGBTQ people can only march if they are not identifiable – in other words, as long as they remain invisible in the Irish community – and that no future end to the exclusion is planned. The ban on Irish LGBTQ groups remains in place, as it has since 1991.

“After 25 years of trickery and bigotry by the parade committee, no one is fooled when they say the parade is too short, or that Irish LGBTQ people just have to wait our turn behind NBC’s gay employees. They’ve always tried to sweep Irish LGBTQ people under the rug, rather than admit we’re part of the Irish community.” said J.F. Mulligan of Irish Queers. “The parade organizers haven’t suddenly stopped being anti-gay. They still seem terrified that Irish LGBTQ people exist and walk among them. They’ve tried to evade us by making this deal with a corporate gay group.”

"The Fifth Avenue St. Patrick's Day parade, unfortunately, remains non-inclusive,” said Council Member Daniel Dromm. “This has always been about including an Irish gay organization, not some corporate backed gay group.  Until the parade is truly representative of all Irish people, I don't believe anyone should march in it. New York must do what is done in Ireland and allow Irish lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to participate. It's just that simple.”

“We've boycotted the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Manhattan for a simple reason: refusing to allow Irish LGBT New Yorkers to celebrate their heritage and their identity by marching in the parade is discriminatory,” said Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer. “Almost all New Yorkers know that continued exclusion of Irish LGBT New York organizations from the parade is wrong. This longstanding struggle isn't solved by cloaking a little-known LGBT group under a quasi-corporate banner.”

“People who support equality must not accept anything less then full, open participation for members of the Irish LGBT community,” said Allen Roskoff, President of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club. “Full equality means participating as identifiable and proud members of the Irish LGBT community. The days of denying our existence by exclusion in the St Patrick’s Day Parade are over. This is not the time for acceptance of a gesture which is hollow, discriminatory and insulting. One must never compromise to bigotry." 

"We will never march in a parade that is not fully open and inclusive of all New Yorkers. Homophobia fuels the AIDS epidemic. It isn't just a personal opinion when it's on display for millions of New Yorkers to witness. NYC has to stop rolling out the welcome wagon for bigots. This public policy – which is what it is – is wrong. The parade should be inclusive or it shouldn't exist," said Jennifer Flynn of VOCAL-NY.

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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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Statement: Still here, still queer, still Irish; and applying to march.

(Photo: Donna Aceto, Gay City News 9/9/14)

Sept. 9, 2014

Last week we learned that the NYC St. Patrick's Day parade made a backroom deal to invite OUT@NBC Universal, a gay marketing group, to march in the 2015 parade. Today, Irish Queers are applying to march in the 2015 St. Patrick’s Parade, along with Lavender and Green Alliance and St. Pat’s for All.

It’s no secret that parade organizers don’t want to admit that Irish LGBT people are part of the Irish community; and that they use their control over the parade permit to keep us out. Two decades of calls from Ireland and NYC to end the bigotry have not changed the parade committee’s minds.

They’re under pressure now, but they haven’t changed their tune. When Guinness, Heineken, and elected officials dropped out of the parade last year, NBC told the parade committee they couldn’t keep sponsoring unless the anti-gay ban were lifted. So OUT@NBC offered itself as a painless solution. Gay corporate staff can march (under a banner that doesn’t say the word “gay”), NBC saves face, and the parade keeps NBC’s sponsorship – without doing a thing to end the exclusion of Irish LGBT groups.

Parade organizers have said in the press that Irish LGBT groups “can apply to march in future years” and that inviting NBC’s gays is “a gesture of goodwill.” This is an unwelcome bit of Irish nostalgia. ILGO was also told by parade organizers in the early 1990s to "apply to march." The organizers pretended ILGO was on a waiting list because the parade was too long, and made excuses for refusing our application that were uncovered later in court.

Now, less than a week since their “gesture of goodwill”, the parade committee is saying they can’t entertain our application because they’re “under pressure to shorten the parade.” ARE. YOU. SERIOUS.

We’re submitting our application today. And we’re calling on OUT@NBC Universal to refuse to march until Irish LGBT groups march in the Irish parade, under our own banners. We call on OUT@NBC not to be pawns in this triangulation of homophobia, money, and PR.

We want to march up Fifth Avenue as an Irish diaspora that has finally joined Ireland in rejecting religion-fueled bigotry. Let Irish queer groups finally take our place in this year's parade.

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Statement on St Patrick's Parade/OUT@NBC announcement

Irish Queers -- along with the scores of LGBT individuals, groups, and allies who have fought since 1991 for a parade that includes the whole Irish community -- is learning about the change in the NYC St Patrick's Day parade at the same time as the rest of New York City and the Irish community. We welcome this cracking of the veneer of hate, but so far Irish LGBT groups are still not able to march in our community's parades. The fight continues.

This is a deal that was made behind closed doors between parade organizers and one of their last remaining sponsors, NBC. It allows NBC's gay employees to march, but embarrassingly has not ended the exclusion of Irish LGBT groups. The parade organizers have said, astoundingly, that we "can apply" in years to come.

To the extent that parade organizers have changed their tune, it's the result of Irish Queers' many years of organizing, which led to last year's refusal to march by Council Speaker Mark-Viverito and others, and Mayor de Blasio, the withdrawal of major corporate sponsors and escalating criticism of uniformed city workers marching in the Parade.

We welcome this small victory, but our call remains the same -- the parade must be open to Irish LGBT groups, not "in subsequent years" but now. (We remember too well how parade organizers used fake waiting lists to bury our appications before.)

The Irish community in Ireland and abroad is far more progressive than the parade committee, having abandoned the secretive power-mongering of the days when the Catholic Church held sway over politics. We still hope NYC will catch up. This has been a long, long journey and struggle. It is time for Irish LGBT people, marching under our own banner, to take our rightful place in the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Info: 917-517-3627 or irishqueers@gmail.com

irishqueers.blogspot.com

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O HIJINKS! Bill Donohue can march in NYC Pride - but does he want to?

File under hilarious unintended consequences (Irish Queers' or Bill Donohue's, take your pick.) Right-Catholic bigot Bill Donohue has applied to march in Pride. Unfortunately for him, NYC Pride organizers said "sure!" Now he's stuck with it -- although apparently he hasn't actually registered yet and is trying to wiggle out. Major kudos to Heritage of Pride for rolling with the punches.

Below are the news clips from March 20 and 21, 2014.

Your Irish-and-queer-but-not-Catholic blogger has to admit that she never heard Bill Donohue speak until these recordings made the rounds, although he's said plenty of similar stuff in print. But heavens to Betsy! The man sounds like he needs a Guinness and some downers. OMG, I really, really hope he marches in Pride.

----

[VIDEO] Donohue: Gay Pride Putting Up Blocks to Stop Me Marching

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donohue-gay-pride-blocks/2014/03/20/id/560846/

Donohue believes NYC Pride is fearful that Catholic League supporters could overwhelm the Gay Pride Parade, which is held on the last weekend in June.

"What if instead of getting 100 people, what if I get 3,000 people? What if we begin to overwhelm their parade and veto their message. They know what's at stake," he said.

"They had a chance already to unequivocally answer me, and they're not doing that. They're dancing on the head of a lawyer's pin. We'll find out."

Donohue insisted the controversy surrounding the St. Patrick's Day Parade is not being promoted by all gays, but rather an elite group of high-powered liberals with an agenda.

"There's not enough gays that they lined up single file to pull off this nonsense, it's supported by the tony corporate boys and girls at Guinness … and the Georgetown people, Park Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin, Hollywood people," he said.

Guinness, along with fellow brewers Heineken and Samuel Adams, pulled out of sponsorship of the St. Patrick's Day Parade because of organizers' refusal to allow gays to march under their own banner. Donohue says he will boycott the beers.

"You know who I'm talking about, the elite. It's the cultural elite," said Donohue. "They think it's chic to be involved with gay rights causes.... [They] crossed the line on this one. All we want to do is have a St. Patrick's Day parade which honors St. Patrick's and you want to crash it with your own agenda.

Bill Donahue wants to ruin New York City’s LGBT pride parade by participating in it

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/20/bill-donahue-wants-to-ruin-new-york-citys-lgbt-pride-parade-by-participating-in-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+(The+Raw+Story)

Catholic League's Bill Donohue Seems a Little Nervous About Actually Marching in the Gay Pride Parade

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/03/bill_donohue_gay_pride_lgbt_march_catholic_league_gay_training_sessions.php

[VIDEO & AUDIO which btw sounds like Donohue is about to blow a gasket] Why NYC's Gay Pride Parade Is Letting This Guy March Under a "Straight Is Great" Banner

http://www.policymic.com/articles/85815/why-nyc-s-gay-pride-parade-is-letting-this-guy-march-under-a-straight-is-great-banner

Pride parade welcomes Catholic League's Donohue's request to march

http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/pride-parade-welcomes-catholic-league-s-donohue-s-request-to-march-1.7455814

Bill Donohue, Catholic League Leader, Invited To March In The 2014 NYC Pride Parade

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/20/bill-donohue_n_4999802.html

Anti-Gay Catholic Leader Trying To Slip Out Of Agreement To March In Gay Pride Parade?

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/anti-gay-catholic-leader-trying-to-slip-out-of-agreement-to-march-in-gay-pride-parade/news/2014/03/21/84632?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNewCivilRightsMovement+(The+New+Civil+Rights+Movement)

Anti-Gay Catholic Leader Trying To Slip Out Of Agreement To March In Gay Pride Parade?

Falsely Claims NYC Pride ‘Trying To Impose Their Agenda’ On His ‘Straight Is Great’ Marchers

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/anti-gay-catholic-leader-trying-to-slip-out-of-agreement-to-march-in-gay-pride-parade/news/2014/03/21/84632?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNewCivilRightsMovement+(The+New+Civil+Rights+Movement)

Bill Donohue is the head of the highly-profitable Catholic League. From his office suite that adjoins the New York Archdiocese headquarters, Bill Donohue sits, waits, and then attacks. He attacks same-sex marriage and its supporters. He attacks women’s reproductive rights and its supporters. He attacks those who oppose the church’s handling of its pedophile priests. And he attacks any social issue that might challenge the authority or positions of the Roman Catholic Church.

And for that, Bill Donohue makes $407,000 a year.

His Catholic League is rated just two out of four stars by Charity Navigator. Of the $3.7 million Donohue’s Catholic League — which many believe is just Donohue and a secretary or two — took in during 2012, a whopping 23.4% went to administrative costs, and another whopping 22% went to fundraising.

So why are we telling you all this?

Because Bill Donohue is a blowhard and a coward.

This week, Donohue went ballistic, after learning that Guinness beer pulled its sponsorship of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade over the parade’s anti-gay policies. Being an Irish Catholic, no doubt the parade is near and dear to Bill’s heart, but apparently the free market system is allowed to go just so far for Donohue.

He launched a boycott of Guinness, which he said was acting “like a corporate bully.”

So in retaliation, and no doubt trying to find discrimination, Donohue made a big stink about trying to get into the New York City gay pride parade. He demanded organizers allow him to march under a “Straight is Great” banner.

Much to Donohue’s surprise, they did — immediately.

Hours later, the head of GLAAD asked to march with him. Turns out, Sarah Kate Ellis is “a fellow Irish New Yorker.”

Now, in a cowardly and hypocritical way, Donohue is trying to claim organizers are stalling and trying to block him, so he can wiggle out of marching in the parade.

The problem, for Donohue, is that they’re not.

“Their initial response was okay, you have to come to a training session,” Donohue said in an interview yesterday with NewsMax TV. “People have to wear LGBT paraphernalia … Now they are dancing. They are saying, well … we have our own rules and what not,” Donohue is claiming.

“Quite frankly as a straight guy, I don’t go to gay training sessions,” Donohue said. “I’m pretty much of an untrainable guy when it comes these things.”

“I said, look I want to be clear, can I march with my banner ‘Straight is Great?’ My members will wear t-shirts ‘Straight is Great’ – I’m waiting for the final answer.”

“Before I attend your training sessions, I just want to know … They’re not giving me an unequivocal answer.”

In this video, Donohue admits his entire reason for wanting to march is to make up his own rules. Now that he’s done so, and they’ve been accepted, he is twisting the organizers’ response:

[VIDEO]

Well, that’s totally false, according to the NYC Pride organizers.

The New Civil Rights Movement reached out to the official organizers of NYC Pride, Heritage of Pride, Inc.

Here’s what they said to us, via email:

We require all March registrants to have group leaders attend an event operations training. This is for the safety for our participants. The requirement is not unique to Mr. Donohue.

Mr. Donohue sought prior approval on his group’s slogan, “Straight is Great.” We acknowledged his message and said the text was fine. At no point have we instructed Mr. Donohue as to what must be printed on his group’s shirts. The NYC Pride March Rules & FAQs sheet can be found here (as public on our website):

http://www.nycpride.org/uploads/2013NYCPrideMarch-Rules&FAQs.pdf

As of [this] writing, neither Mr. Donohue nor the Catholic League have submitted registration for the 2014 NYC Pride March.

So, a safety training class to Bill Donohue is “gay training.”

He got his “final answer” immediately, and he knows it — as does everyone else who’s been following the news.

NYC Pride clearly did not state that he or his group “have to wear LGBT paraphernalia,” nor does their four-page list of rules address attire, with the exception of noting nudity below the waist is illegal in New York City.

Donohue is a fraud, a coward, and a blowhard.

Frankly, this latest stunt is an embarrassment to the Catholic Community he claims to represent and defend, and they should tell him to stop speaking for them.

If Bill Donohue — whose anti-gay views, comments, and attacks are beyond ugly — demands to be allowed to march in the NYC gay pride parade, and he’s welcomed, he should follow through, or be held up as a coward too afraid to walk the streets of New York with LGBT people by his side.

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Ireland & around there: News clips from St. Patrick's Day protest

The Guardian | Associated Press | 3/17/14

New York mayor to skip St Patrick's Day parade over gay rights dispute

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/17/new-york-mayor-skip-st-patricks-day-parade

Irish Times | 3/17/14 | Simon Carswell

Guinness pulls sponsorship of New York parade over gay ban

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/guinness-pulls-sponsorship-of-new-york-parade-over-gay-ban-1.1728158

Irish Times | 3/17/14 | Simon Carswell

Taoiseach Defends Decision to March in New York Parade

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/taoiseach-defends-decision-to-march-in-new-york-parade-1.1728472

Irish Examiner | 3/18/14 | Mary Regan

New York parties but this St Patrick's Day is one of exclusion

http://www.irishexaminer.com/analysis/new-york-parties-but-this-st-patricks-day-is-one-of-exclusion-262347.html

Irish Times | 3/18/14 Simon | Carswell

Taoiseach misses gay protest at New York St Patrick’s Day parade

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/taoiseach-misses-gay-protest-at-new-york-st-patrick-s-day-parade-1.1728681

Irish Times  | 3/16/14 | Donald Clarke

Why must we be proud to be Irish?

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/why-must-we-be-proud-to-be-irish-1.1725880 

Irish Independent | 3/18/14 | Lise Hand

Between a rock and a green place, Enda brushes off LGBT row
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/lise-hand/between-a-rock-and-a-green-place-enda-brushes-off-lgbt-row-30100493.html

Irish Independent | 3/18/14 | Orla Tinsley
Identity politics are tricky - particularly at the St Patrick's Day Parade
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/orla-tinsley-identity-politics-are-tricky-particularly-at-the-st-patricks-day-parade-30099072.html

Irish Independent | 3/14/14 | Katherine Zappone

How ban on gay groups in New York parade threatens Ireland's reputation
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/how-ban-on-gay-groups-in-new-york-parade-threatens-irelands-reputation-30091535.html

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Press release: LGBTQ & Policing Groups To Protest NYPD @ NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade

PRESS RELEASE – For immediate release

Contact: Emmaia Gelman (917) 517-3627

Date: March 14, 2014

LGBTQ Groups & Policing Groups Will Protest NYPD Contingents in Discriminatory St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Parade Committee claims “private, religious” exemption from NYC anti-discrimination ruling -- but City agencies don’t have “free speech right” to bypass anti-bias rules.

Pre-protest press conference: Monday 3/17, 10:30am (30 mins before parade). Between 56th & 57th Sts, west side of Fifth Ave.

New York – LGBTQ groups and allies plan to protest the large contingents of uniformed New York City police and firefighters marching in the antigay NYC St. Patrick’s Day parade this Monday, March 17. The parade’s unwavering homophobia has led Mayor de Blasio and the City Council to formally join the long-standing boycott this year.

Organizations will include Irish Queers, the Anti-Violence Project, Queer Nation, New Alternatives for LGBT Youth, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, Brooklyn Lambda Independent Democrats, VOCAL-NY, JFREJ Campaign for Police Accountability, and others.

“The homophobic bigotry of this parade is reaffirmed each year by the organizers. The NYPD’s insistence on sending huge uniformed contingents every year, makes it clear that the rights of our communities don’t concern them. Commissioner Bratton hasn’t even acknowledged the community’s outrage. If the NYPD and the City refuses to uphold their own anti-bias rules, how can we trust police officers with our safety?” said JF Mulligan of Irish Queers.

The NYC Human Rights Commission found that the parade, as a public event, could not discriminate against LGBTQ people. However, a federal court granted parade organizers’ claim that the parade is not public, but actually a “private, religious procession.” Parade organizers say allowing gay Irish groups to march, or allowing individual marchers to identify themselves as LGBTQ, would contradict Catholic doctrine that opposes homosexuality.

The parade controversy has heated up this year with the Mayor’s announcement that he would boycott, with battles over draconian religious anti-gay legislation in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi and Missouri.

“At a time when we are horrified by laws in Arizona and elsewhere that would deny public services to LGBTQ people, it’s particularly ironic that NYC would allow its police and firefighters to march in a parade that’s so notoriously homophobic,” said Alan Levine, attorney for Irish Queers.

“The parade organizers claim a right to discriminate, in private, in order to get around the Human Rights Commission’s anti-discrimination ruling. If the NYPD – a public agency – now claims its own ‘free speech right’ to join in that private, religious discrimination, we’re on a dangerous path that feels a lot like Arizona’s,” said Mulligan.

Irish ministers are also boycotting the Fifth Avenue parade, with the exception of the conservative Irish taoiseach (prime minister). The government has been bitterly split over his decision to attend. A coalition of Ireland’s top political parties, including the taoiseach’s own party, have published a video condemning the parade and refuting its connection to Irish culture. LGBTQ groups have published a letter calling on him to boycott. Web links follow.

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For more information: http://irishqueers.blogspot.com

“In St. Pat’s Dispute, Free Speech is Not the Issue” Gay City News, 3/5/14

http://gaycitynews.com/tag/st-patricks-day-parade/

“New York mayor out of step with St Patrick's Day march over anti-gay ban: Bill de Blasio is the first New York mayor for 21 years to boycott the St Patrick's Day parade over its ban on gay participants – but is he doing enough?” The Guardian, 3/8/14

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/08/new-york-mayor-de-blasio-st-patricks-parade-gay-ban

“Why the Taoiseach should not join the St Patrick’s Day parade

Opinion: Our Irishness is pluralist and non-sectarian”, Irish Times, 3/11/14

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/why-the-taoiseach-should-not-join-the-st-patrick-s-day-parade-1.1719160?page=2

“New York St. Patrick’s parade no place for my child” IrishCentral.com, 3/12/14

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/New-York-St-Patricks-parade-no-place-for-my-child-.html

“Irish parliamentarians support St Pats for All” 2/28/14

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDqxq1YgOhg

“Dear Enda” - Irish LGBTQ groups call on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to boycott or break antigay parade rules.

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

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