Citing Restrictions On Gays, Mayor de Blasio Won't March In NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade

[BeyondGeography]

Mayor de Blasio said Tuesday he will sit out the nation’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parade because of organizers’ refusal to allow participants to carry gay-pride signs.

Gays are welcome to walk in the procession, but are barred from identifying themselves by their sexual orientation.

“No, I am not planning on marching in the parade,” de Blasio said at a City Hall press conference. “I will be participating in a number of other events to honor the Irish heritage of this city, but I simply disagree with the organizers of that parade.”

De Blasio’s absence is a departure from previous mayors’ involvement with the popular parade...

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2014/02/citing-restrictions-on-gays-mayor-de-blasio-wont-march-in-nyc-st-patricks-day-

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Good for him!

And I didn't realize that restriction was even in place for the St. Patrick's day parade in Manhattan . . .

[lunasun]

2. WTF?Gays are welcome to walk in the procession, but are barred from identifying themselves by their

sexual orientation.
No one should march in that kind of parade!!!!!!

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. It goes waaayy back to the nineties. Maybe even the eighties.

Epic struggles to get the dinosaurs who "own" the parade ( something called the Ancient Order of Hiberians) to allow a specifically Irish, openly LGBT group into the event.

Mayor Dinkins ( early nineties) invited the gay group to march with HIM in the parade after they were banned. The crowd threw garbage at him.

The subsequent mayors quietly succumbed to the parade organizers.

[lunasun]

6. Maybe Dinkins being black would understand how wrong the exclusion and I am glad the new mayor

does too
even if it goes back to 90's it is no excuse to continue this practice in 2014
sick

[Bluenorthwest]

20. Ancient Order of Hiberians is not a 'something' they define themselves thusly:

"We are the oldest and largest Irish Catholic organization in the United States. The AOH is a place to meet like minded Irish Americans who share the same values and beliefs."

So no big mystery really.
http://www.aoh.com/

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. So far, I'm friggin' *loving* this guy.

Imagine... a guy who ran as a progressive actually making good on his rhetoric.

[Cha]

5. In NYC.. that's freaking bizarre!

Good for Mayor de Blasio!

[hrmjustin]

7. Good for the mayor!

[oshma]

8. "Religious procession" is the claim by the AOH

OK. IF the Ancient Order of Hibernians (my father, John Joseph Edward O'Shaughnessy _hated_ them and called them "professional Irish" and "The Order of Ancient Hibernians&quot want to force this to be a religious issue, it's on.

They must pay the city for _all_ expenses incurred by the city in hosting this. That is all the sanitation, police, EMS, etc. overtime. Every penny in expenses must be reimbursed before the next St. Patrick's Day parade can be held. After all, those nice Hibernians wouldn't want their tax money going for an Eid-ul Fitr parade, right? So no public money should be spent on a Catholic parade. First Amendment and all that...

[SunSeeker]

13. [phone]!

[pangaia]

16. + 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Take that, Sunseeker.

[merrily]

18. That has nothing to do with it. A parade is not a religious observance.

It's not only a question of cost, either. it takes place on public streets, at inconvenience to the driving public, with public police officers enabling it, and so on. It has, as they say, the "imprimatur" of a governmentally approved event. Indeed, a parade does have to have government approval, via a parade permit.




No one is telling them they have to give communion to someone in drag.

BTW, I have wonder what Jesus said about communion or parades and gays anyway. Besides things like love your neighbor as yourself, I mean. If they're excluding their neighbor from the parade, but not themselves, which religion are they observing, exactly?

[oshma]

22. We that this isn't a religious observance, but my proposal makes them stand up to their claim

Actually, Jesus did have something somewhat related to parading around in the street.

Matthew 23:1-7:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Teacher’ by others.

[warrant46]

9. A Parade Organized by a Group of Homophobic Religious Criminals

And when Dinkins tried to march --- They threw garbage at him

Thuggish behavior

[BeyondGeography]

10. Yes, the Savage City still lives

We have some nasty history here; very recent and not too far under the surface either. DeBlasio is showing some much needed guts here and elsewhere. I hope he's around for a very long time.

[warrant46]

11. +1

[awoke_in_2003]

12. K&R. nt

[SunSeeker]

14. K & R

[Titonwan]

15. I like this guy!

He's like a huge, hulking FDR who can stomp cars and grab helicopters in his claws.
I hope he does half what he promised!

[Nanjing to Seoul]

17. First he tells Education Deformer Michael Bloomberg to go get fucked, not he tells homophobic

assholes to go get fucked as well.

Nice beginning.

[merrily]

19. Seems like all locales should consider the criteria for parade permits.

Maybe I'll contact my state rep and someone on the city council and see what they say.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. It's a Procession of Bigotry.

I do not blame the idiot marchers, I blame their deceptive and fraudulent leadership, men such as Cardinal Dolan, who paid off rapist priests, then lied about doing so, then hid millions from the victims, lied about that. He is a 'Prince' in that Church. The main leader, Francis Superstar, says gay people are Satanic in origin, our rights a destructive attack upon the will of Goddy God.
With hate being the primary message of their leaders, and money being their only objective, the exploited idiots with their 'parade' are just puppets of low men in high thrones. Those low men are empowered by millions who defend them and report their every move as if it was part of the Second Coming.