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People and Politics by Patrick Roberts

It's time for the St. Pat's standoff to end

Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2011 at 08:40 AM

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When the inclusive Sunnyside Wooside Saint Patrick's Parade stepped off on Skillman Avenue in Queens on Sunday, it was deja vu all over again.

This year, like all the other years before it, the unique parade was one of the most joyous and colorful Saint Patrick's parades in the nation - and one of the most genuinely welcoming.

(The main Saint Patrick's Day parade on Fifth Avenue refuses to let gay Irish parade goers march under their own banners or wear sashes or badges that make it clear they are LGBT).

But that's not an issue in the Sunnyside/Woodside parade. Each year in Queens participants reflecting the full (and often beautiful) diversity of New York City itself come out to march in a parade that has opened its arms to the city in ways the main one on Fifth Avenue never has.

But there's a catch. The truth is there's a certain Groundhog Day feel to both parades now that standoff between them has calcified. And even the dueling organizers must, in their private moments, wonder how long this can go on?

Were we ever any better than this? Weren't we smarter than this once? Is this tense and public standoff really the best we'll ever do?

America used to stand for generosity and tolerance. It used to stand for realism and welcome. But for two decades, on both sides, we've let a small but vocal minority set the agenda for the majority and the result has been division and anger. That kind of absolutism has been a disaster for the nation, for the fabric of Irish America, and for the parade.

Look at Ireland. The nation has enacted full civil unions for its LGBT citizens and now 73 percent of people there are in favor of marriage equality, the highest number ever. Ireland has simply addressed a long standing inequality and moved on.

In the US we've seen the repeal of DADT and the President's decision that DOMA is indefensible. Gay people, it turns out, are not people who know nobody and who nobody knows - they're sons and daughters, sisters and brothers. They aren't an attack on the family - they are family.

So surely, in the new spirit of realism, it is not beyond the invention of the Fifth Avenue parade organizers to craft a tough compromise that will end this very public family squabble once and for all?

In life it's important to know which fights to pick but it's equally as important to know when to bury the hatchet. That time has come for both sides. Both sides have made their point. We are greater together than apart.

And the best and brightest of us know this. This moment calls for real leadership. Now, who among us will be big enough to act?

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AliceL. | Mar 10, 2011, 09:29 AM EST

Armagabu you do not prove your point by insulting me and by name calling. In fact, you are proving what I already know: that the organizers of this "parade" are a bunch of radicals with a far Left agenda who care not a whit about Sunnyside. They came, they saw, the littered! Who are the real bigots here?

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AliceL. | Mar 10, 2011, 08:47 AM EST

Eiramach - "time sensitve information" - oh, you mean on how to abort your baby, don't you? To libs like you, that is the only "choice". BTW: were you in Corona to mourn the death of a young woman, Hispanic, at the hands of an abortionist during a legal abortion? It was pro lifers who were out there with candles. We love the women and the children. Speaking of false advertising, I propose that planned Parenthood puts out a sign that says, 'No referrals for adoption or prenatal care and that women have died during our nice procedures and don't come crying to us when you find out later that you cannot have children." Now that, would be accurate advertising! You can hide behind all the slogans you like about "women's health" but you are talking about taking an innocent life. And by the way: the parade in Sunnyside is an insult to those of us who actually live there!

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eiriamach | Mar 10, 2011, 08:45 AM EST

Isn't it a slander on St. Patrick to exclude people from marching in his honor? Did he give the people he met in Ireland a quiz before he preached the gospel to them? Did he say, "My words are for this one, that one, and t'other one," but not for those who flunked my sexuality quiz"?

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armaghabu | Mar 10, 2011, 08:36 AM EST

Kilgara, you'd be better placed to discuss Catholic religious teaching if you were actually familiar with it. And you'd impress me more as a Christian if you had shown a little compassion and love instead of hateful contempt and judgement. Jesus never said a word about gays and he wasn't the type of man to overlook talking about what he considered a sin. Though he did condemn whited sepulchers (a person who is inwardly evil but outwardly professes to be virtuous) in Matthew 23:27.

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eiriamach | Mar 10, 2011, 08:23 AM EST

Kilgara, because your "faith teaches its followers that homosexuality is an abomination," your faith breeds homophobes and bigots. It really is that simple. And that's why LGBTs need to march in the parade--so that people will see that they are human beings like everyone else, so that the bigots will realize that they CAN love their neighbor as Christ counseled, so that those in your church who preach exclusion, discrimination, and persecution can begin to repent rather than burning "in hell for all eternity" as you put it, so that the light of truth can begin to generate a love of Christ (or justice or community or common decency) in the minds and hearts and souls of those who, like you, have been given a license for bigotry by churchmen.

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kilgara | Mar 10, 2011, 12:46 AM EST

Why doesen't Roberts address the central issue here?. This parade is in honor of a man who preached the Roman Catholic faith.This faith teaches its followers that homosexuality is an abomination and that anyone who practices it, without repenting, will burn in hell for all eternity. So, why would a committee, honoring this saint, allow banners promoting and celebrating a lifestyle that he was totally opposed to? It really is that simple.

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armaghabu | Mar 09, 2011, 07:38 PM EST

I live in Sunnyside, I'm Irish and I most certainly do support the St. Pat's parade there, as do all of my Irish friends. It annoys me when people like AliceL pretend to speak for the whole community. We're not all a bunch of spiteful, close minded bigots. And I had to laugh when JmaieLM said why can't the gays not make themselves invisible like her and her husband? How stupid is that? Doesn't the fact that she wears a ring and advertises she HAS a husband mean she's announcing her sexuality? Honest to God, some of you brainiacs are so simple it's a wonder you found your way to the airport to emigrate here.

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jacersagain | Mar 09, 2011, 04:30 PM EST

Re the responses of eiriamach, olovely and PolindeB to my posts of yesterday: - Ya see? Did yez see what happened? - I stick my neck inside the door and offer some truth-filled comments and they all come charging to the door, swinging axes at my neck.... Jaysus, ICentral is gettin’ ta be a dangerous place to debate! In fact, all of their responses show what desperate people can do when faced with a Truth that cannot be denied... kick it, kill it. Mother of God! – Or should that be ‘Murder of God’? – What is wrong with truth and common sense?

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eiriamach | Mar 09, 2011, 03:23 PM EST

In 1963, when the city of Birmingham, Alabama, refused to give the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. a parade permit for a civil rights march, everyone understood that refusal as a "political action." When my Irish immigrant ancestors marched down Fifth Avenue on March 17 and carried union banners, everyone understood (and the Irish approved of) that activity as "political action." I could go on with this list, but you get the idea. A parade is, among other descriptions, a "political" event, so let's not kid ourselves: excluding LGBTs is a political action. What kind of hypocrisy goes into the claim, in several posts below, that LGBTs should not expect the St. Patrick's Day Parade to accommodate them since they are a political group?

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eiriamach | Mar 09, 2011, 03:09 PM EST

AliceL, You can call false advertising and outright deceit "free speech"? It is especially cruel when pregnant women are seeking time-sensitive medical services and "crisis pregnancy center" personnel dupe them into thinking that the "crisis pregnancy center" is a medical facility with trained doctors, nurses, and health assistants who will provide the reproductive health services that pregnant women need. No, the "crisis pregnancy center" provides NO post-rape emergency contraceptive, NO prenatal care, NO abortion services, and often NO confidentiality as expected in a doctor-patient relationship, only pro-life counseling. Women who visit crisis centers are particularly vulnerable, so Council Bill 371-A is more than just an ordinary consumer protection measure. It requires all facilities with "pregnancy" advertising to advise their clients to consult with a licensed medical provider; it requires that if they do not provide prenatal, contraceptive, and abortion services, they must give referrals for these services. In other words, the bill requires the liars to begin telling the truth about who they are and what they do and don't do. This "crisis pregnancy center" fraud is of the most horrendous assaults on women's health I've seen, perhaps second only to the sex-slave trade, and to realize that Catholics are pushing it truly turns my stomach.

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AliceL. | Mar 09, 2011, 01:27 PM EST

It was nice listening to Christine Quinn, Daniel Dromm and Jimmy Van Bramer lecture us and whine about free speech for their being excluded from the Staten Island parade (from carrying openly gay banners) while these same individuals try to stop the free speech of crisis pregnancy centers which save lives (I am talking about the anti-First Amendment bill 371-a which Quinn sponsored, Quinn, of course, being very unlikely to become pregnant). Again, it is the fake, phony fraud politicans and political statements that I object to. There is also very little Irish support for this parade.

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AliceL. | Mar 09, 2011, 01:18 PM EST

Olovely, you are the bigot! You don't know how I feel. My neighborhood in Queens does not like this parade because it is a vast lefty political statement which, in the past, has included "Free Mumia" signs and "Free David Peletier" signs (the two men being cop killers). I also saw signs with Rudy Bulliani. The radicals come into my neighborhood to litter and bully while the pandering politicos give into them. Please tell Brenda Fay to hold his fest in Astoria, where he lives.

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jamieLM | Mar 09, 2011, 12:39 PM EST

That would be "any political statements." My 3 yr. old hit the comment button prematurely before I could proofread. LOL

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jamieLM | Mar 09, 2011, 12:33 PM EST

Why can't the LBGT people march under banners like, "Proud to be Irish"? Straight people don't march under "We're Heterosexual" banners, nor do married people hold up their hands to show their wedding rings. My husband and I march with our large Irish club that includes gays. No one waves a sexual preference banner. Our club has fun marching together to celebrate St. Patrick and our Irish heritage, and not to make political any statements.

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AengusOg | Mar 09, 2011, 10:00 AM EST

LBGT banners are political statements that have no place in the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

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