58 Comments

• DennisQ | Mar 14, 2011, 05:34 PM EDT

  AliceL, it sounds like you take issue with Foucault, not with me for mentioning his work. You might want to ground yourself in what he actually has to say rather than my possibly garbled interpretation of it. Read, for example, Foucault's History of Sexuality which is available on Amazon.
  
  I hope you are making a distinction between homosexual acts and homosexual identity - which is what Foucault is getting at. This distinction did not arise until the Industrial Revolution, he says.

• jacersagain | Mar 13, 2011, 01:55 PM EDT

  What happened to my response of Mar 11th to DennisQ, which has now been deleted after a day or two on display?

• jacersagain | Mar 11, 2011, 07:27 PM EST

  @ballyhip Mar 10 – sure that’s a silly comparison to make! All Irish parades around St. Patrick’s Day are for the Irish to celebrate being Irish, even stage-dressed sillily as a leprechaun or St. Patk hisself, not for hijacking by people with selfish, brassy, garish, gaudy, tawdry outfits depicting their sickening un-natural preferences in a forlorn cause. So, nope, ya don’t win on that, there's no comparison! Slán leat.

• AliceL. | Mar 11, 2011, 02:48 PM EST

  Suetonius documented the homosexual behavior of Julius Caesar ("He was every woman's man and every man's woman") and others.

• DennisQ | Mar 11, 2011, 01:41 PM EST

  It's possible that St. Patrick never encountered a homosexual in his entire life. The notion of a sexual "orientation" as such didn't arise until much later in history, possibly not until the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.
  
  What has been called "queer theory," an offshoot of feminist theory, is not mainstream enough to have entereed popular discourse. If it had, the writings of French philosopher Michel Foucault would be more widely known. Foucault is the leading exponent of the idea that "homosexuality" has no history earlier than the 17th Century. It's not simply that there was no word for it; it simply didn't exist. That would explain why Jesus himself never addressed it - and he certainly would have . . . if it existed.
  
  Perhaps the parade itself is an offshoot of the Industrial Revolution. That would make it contemporaneous with the advent of homosexuality. Thus it might be argued in Foucaultian terms that homosexuals marched ab initio in the St. Patrick's Day Parade; in fact that homosexuals were among the parade's founders.

• AliceL. | Mar 11, 2011, 01:32 PM EST

  Eiramach, this parade is a farce much like the Village Halloween party.

• eiriamach | Mar 11, 2011, 12:33 PM EST

  AliceL, I'm not a parade insider, so I cannot claim to know, but I am willing to bet you dollars to doughnuts that the Queens Parade committee invited ALL the politicians in the area. Only the liberal politicians accepted the invitation. The conservatives declined because they thought they would lose votes if their voters saw them at a parade that includes LGBTs. I respect the integrity of the politicians who accepted the invitation to march in the Queens parade. And you are still pouring out your hatred for LGBTs and "libs" here. Why? Surely you cannot hope to influence anyone with your rants and your presumptions about the "guy" you think I had sex with "who thinks you are a garbage can or a receptacle for his semen." Fortunately for me, I did not know anyone with that weird a view of sex until I encountered you on IC.

• ballyhip | Mar 10, 2011, 05:02 PM EST

  "So why should LGBT people think they have a special right to stand out in the parades in brassy, tawdry displays?" How is one to distinguish them from the "stage Irish" in green wigs or red beards that frequent our parades? Having witnessed parades in Sligo and Dublin, both rather recent events in the provenance of parades, I can ensure you that neither lacks for brassy or tawdry displays. It is the nature of public displays.

• rosieoneill | Mar 10, 2011, 03:33 PM EST

  Why not celebrate both parades? I'm sure there's enough green beer to go around.

• AliceL. | Mar 10, 2011, 02:54 PM EST

  Eieramach, abortion is not "women's health services". It is the taking of an innocent life. The notorious eugenicist, Margaret Sanger, who supported the Tuskegee experiments and addressed a KKK rally in NJ would be so proud of you! And she was vehemently anti-Catholic - I guess you are also. "Choice" my rear end! You made your choice when you had sex with a guy who thinks you are a garbage can or a receptacle for his semen.

• manhattan | Mar 10, 2011, 01:00 PM EST

  olovely you need some anger management help. Your name doesn't fit your rants.

• jamieLM | Mar 10, 2011, 11:35 AM EST

  armaghabu - what a stupid remark about a wedding ring meaning that you're straight! Usually a wedding ring means you're legally married, although the absence of a wedding ring doesn't necessarily mean you're not married, either. Do you know that people can be legally married, straight or gay, and choose not to wear their wedding rings for personal reasons? Have you not heard about men & women who were married, wearing wedding rings, who knew they were actually "closet" gays or lesbians? Did you know that there are legally married, or not, gay people who wear wedding rings? We march in a large group, not in pairs. No one knows who belongs with whom unless you know us personally. We don't wave banners with pointing arrows saying, "I'm with him/her." Often we women march in a group in front and the men walk in a group right behind us. We're ALL "invisible" when it comes to sexual preferences. We gay & straight club members want to be identified only as a group who is coming together to celebrate St. Patrick and our common Irish heritage. Gay & straight members have been marching side by side for years without a problem. Btw: our club is open to ANYONE interested in Irish culture and history. Our club's purpose isn't to debate the issues of homosexuality. All of our members just happen to be born in America, including me. So how stupid were your remarks about my post?

• armaghabu | Mar 10, 2011, 11:28 AM EST

  The real bigots are the people who insult, belittle, marginalize and condemn everyone unlike themselves, AliceL. Now go have a good look in your mirror because that's what you're doing. And please don't claim to speak for the irish community again, because you weren't appointed to and you're a lone conservative voice in a heavily Democratic borough. I don't claim to speak for the community either, I have more respect for its diversity than you.

• eiriamach | Mar 10, 2011, 11:12 AM EST

  AliceL, a young woman who has been raped needs HIV testing, she needs biological evidence of the rape gathered **in a timely way** in order to have a hope of justice in prosecution, and she needs gynecological services and victim counseling, not pro-life counseling. The deceit of the "crisis pregnancy center" is cruel. You do not care about the needs of women. You care about only your anti-woman political agenda.

• eiriamach | Mar 10, 2011, 11:01 AM EST

  AliceL, you misquoted me. I wrote that pregnant women need "time-sensitive medical services," NOT "time sensitive information"! Women visit "crisis pregnancy centers" expecting to find gynecologists, obstetricians, and nurse practitioners there. Instead they find extremist ideologues who have not medical services to offer them! Your "crisis pregnancy centers" are a dangerous form of deceit. It's not enough to call this deceit "false advertising" because it does so much harm. It substitutes drivel of the kind you write below for legitimate and needed--often in emergency situations--medical services. Are you simply deluded, or do you really believe that your hatred of women's freedom of choice justifies telling lies to women in need?

• 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?

• 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!

• 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"?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?

• 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?

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

• 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.

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

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

• olovely | Mar 09, 2011, 07:58 AM EST

  In New York we're very likely going to have a gay mayor soon. In Ireland we're very likely to have a gay president. The parade committee need to looks down the road and year or two and see what their parade looks like when two of the most powerful people in the country and state think you're discriminating. Time to get real.

• eiriamach | Mar 09, 2011, 06:15 AM EST

  Thanks, PolinDeB and olovely, for your inspiring comments. I think the silliest comment written here is by eibhleann7 at 3:16: "There is no sexuality of ANY kind on display during the parade because it goes against the fabric of being Irish." If I believed that sexuality could be against being Irish, I'd have to declare myself Italian or French or anything else! What a boring life the Irish would have, but sometimes I suspect that's what the divide-and-conquer religions have in mind.

• PolinDeB | Mar 08, 2011, 11:34 PM EST

  ps I'm pretty sure the Muslim School marches in the Dublin one.. ;0 Its for all Irish people..

• PolinDeB | Mar 08, 2011, 11:33 PM EST

  Wait till next year and we have a gay president!! I'm pretty sure David Norris would be delighted to represent Ireland in the New York Parade... and break the deadlock... For those who think it's incompatible read the proclaimation of the republic, we cherishing all the children of the nation equally - Gay ones included ;) And St Patricks day is a secular feast as well as a religious one... a celebration of who we are.. if hulers can march, girl guides can march, why can gay groups? Their Irish too... "The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past."

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• olovely | Mar 08, 2011, 10:59 PM EST

  If sexuality should have no part in the parade then no one should wear weddings rings; married couples should not march or attend together; and divorcees should just stay home where no one should have to think of them. Bigots are never blessed with logical thinking. If they were they wouldn't be bigots.

• maloney | Mar 08, 2011, 06:49 PM EST

  Sexuality should never have a part in any public parade. Keep it in the bedroom or at least behind closed doors.

• olovely | Mar 08, 2011, 04:18 PM EST

  That last post gives me hope for the future. One good man or woman is worth 10,000 bigots.

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2011, 04:14 PM EST

  Happy International Women's Day, everyone. It's also Shrove Tuesday, and I'm off to meet some friends for pancakes. Try to be nice while I'm gone, Jacers.

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2011, 04:02 PM EST

  Jacersagain writes, "Why should a minority group like the LGBT community set the agenda for the majority who don’t want their garish, gimmicky kind of laugh-in-everybody’s-face attitude...?" The overwhelming majority of American young people support equal rights for LGBTs and cannot understand why fundamentalists and right-wing extremists oppose those rights. Among the rest of the US population, the majority is less overwhelming but still clear. Yet the question of who is in the majority is really irrelevant. If we are ever going to call ourselves one nation, we must stop labeling, excluding, and trying to force one group's sense of morality on others. If you think it's 'wrong,' just don't do it! But to use the trappings of religion or the tyranny of majority rule or any other subterfuge to rationalize treating other human beings as less than fully equal is wrong at the most elementary level. Why can't you see how immoral your own intolerance is? Why can't you see that one type of intolerance breeds other types, and soon you're rationalizing all kinds of bigotry by calling it "religion"--what a handy euphemism that is! To borrow your own words, I "don't want" YOUR "garish, gimmicky" prejudices, but I put up with them for the sake of the community, and so must you put up with those you don't like.

• olovely | Mar 08, 2011, 03:57 PM EST

  You claim they are laughing in the face of the organizers which implies they should be excluded. Then you bang on about God, which implies the same thing. Then you say they should remove any trace of a sign that signals their orientation, which implies the same thing. And you claim they shouldn't be allowed to set the agenda (as if) for the majority, which implies the same thing. You're not the most logical thinker. I assume you're closer to 70 than 17.

• jacersagain | Mar 08, 2011, 03:42 PM EST

  olovely, ya sweet dumb dumb - read my posts again pls - nowhere did I claim that the majority were being discriminated against or that LGBT people should be excluded.

• jacersagain | Mar 08, 2011, 03:31 PM EST

  (...more) Secondly, I’d want to emphatically say that I have no personal animosity towards LGBT people as human beings – I’ve already made that clear through posts under ICentral’s article “First ever openly gay members elected to Irish Parliament” - and I see no reason why LGBT people cannot participate in any parade so long as they don’t use the occasion to flaunt or advertise their own sexual orientation. You don’t see families singularly flaunting their way of life in these parades, do you? No, you don’t. So why should LGBT people think they have a special right to stand out in the parades in brassy, tawdry displays? I’d suggest that they should participate in St. Patrick’s Day parades as ordinary Irish or Irish-Americans celebrating their “Irishness” only, not with a private agenda for public or political notice and attention. Just go and enjoy being Irish for the occasion and leave it at that. There should be no division and anger in celebrating being Irish anywhere in the world, whether in NYC or its Queens suburb.

• olovely | Mar 08, 2011, 03:26 PM EST

  The gay groups aren't setting the agenda, they're being exluded. It's repulsive and stupid when bigots try to claim they're the ones being discriminated against. That means you jacersagain. You're an idiot. Ireland is a Catholic country and they don't discriminate against gay groups. AliceL says she hates the parade and it's no stretch to believe she hates the gay participants. You guys represent the most bigited backward echoes of the land you left behind decades ago.

• jacersagain | Mar 08, 2011, 03:20 PM EST

  I’ve probably no business sticking my head in the door on this NYC/Queens parades’ debate but from outside the door I venture a comment or two – First, Patrick Roberts hit it on the nail saying “We’ve let a small but vocal minority set the agenda for the majority and the result is division and anger.” Quite right – but wrong way around. I’d ask “Why should a minority group like the LGBT community set the agenda for the majority who don’t want their garish, gimmicky kind of laugh-in-everybody’s-face attitude while they live out private lives that an authority no less than the Christian Bible – the Word of God, which St. Patrick spread throughout Ireland in his time - describes as despicable? (More...)

• eibhleann7 | Mar 08, 2011, 03:16 PM EST

  Ireland is a Catholic nation. The parade is for Ireland. There is no sexuality of ANY kind on display during the parade because it goes against the fabric of being Irish. That is strictly for behind closed doors, and believe me, nobody wants to know your business, straight or gay. So march with your county, march with the musicians, march with the athletic clubs, march with the schools, but save the protesting for Capitol Hill and Prop 8. Let people enjoy was is left of celebrating Ireland, because if the foreigners have their way, there will be no more Ireland to celebrate.

• manhattan | Mar 08, 2011, 02:10 PM EST

  The 5th ave. parade is for Irish pride not your sexual preference. Olovely, you attack Alice L. because she is offended by the blatent left wing signs like" US out of Iraq etc. well Olovely , Alice never said she hated any person just the anti american signs at the parade which I'm sure you were carrying. You should stay away fro 5th ave. because that parade shows it's love and appreciation of this country and all it means to us Irish Americans..

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2011, 02:04 PM EST

  Watch out, AliceL, it might be contagious! Is that an erotic impulse creeping in your direction? Get out of the way fast, or you might find yourself enjoying the peace advocates and the diversity of the marchers (horrors!). Seriously, if you don't like it, why not just stay away? Why pour out your hatred here?

• olovely | Mar 08, 2011, 01:36 PM EST

  I'm sure you "hate" a lot of people AliceL. At least you're up front and admit its hatred. It's irrational and bigoted, but you acknowlede that it's hate, not love or compassion, that drives you. Get some help with that.

• AliceL. | Mar 08, 2011, 12:59 PM EST

  I hate this parade - and I live in the Sunnyside area! This is a gay marriage parade and the phony politicians show up. I always notice the U.S. Out of Iraq signs and the Free Mumia signs. This parade has nothing to do with Ireland or a saint. It is about pandering politicians and a pro gay marriage agenda. Please end the Sunnyside parade and put us out of our misery!

• olovely | Mar 08, 2011, 12:55 PM EST

  I'd rather listen to Lady Gaga or the Jedwards than cillowen. So would everyone else. These people really do exist in a vacume but they need to understand the world doesn't and its time to move on.

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2011, 11:45 AM EST

  No one denies that the committee for the NYC parade has freedom of association and can exclude anyone or any group they wish to exclude. That's their constitutional right. I'm just calling that particular devil by its name: homophobia. You don't even need to be LGBT to find yourself excluded, FB "blocked," censored and silenced because bigotry is the one all-inclusive thing about this minority. Just voice your advocacy of equal treatment for women, for example, or groan when they tell their anti-Semitic or homophobic or anti-Muslim or anti-Obama or sexist jokes at Irish-language events, and you will receive the same treatment they give gays. As one of the politically censored, I know whereof I speak. They live in a closed-in parallel universe propped up by delusions and self-promotion; it needs the "spirit of realism" to break through. You have not seen the Queens Saint Patrick's event ever mentioned on NY-area Gaeilgeoiri pages even though there are online photos of a Gaeilgeoiri group marching in the parade (An Slua Nua). The Queens parade's theme in the online photos is "Cherishing all the children of the nation equally" whereas the NYC parade's theme seems to be "Irishness for heteros and sexists only." The result, as Roberts says, is "division and anger." It is so very simple "to act," as Roberts advises: just stop excluding.

• citizen69 | Mar 08, 2011, 11:32 AM EST

  Religious people being intolerant!?... You don't say!

• cillowen | Mar 08, 2011, 11:20 AM EST

  Deviant rule is the aim as would be natural given the preponderance of those in the arts who excites morons on the tele every night. Lady ga-ga and Jedwood twins in erin .... every land konows the curse of confusing our easily led youth.

• olovely | Mar 08, 2011, 10:39 AM EST

  We've all had a belly full of this small minded thinking. The parade invites the police force, the army and the navy. Jesus said no to violence. If the parade comittee can countenance guns and rifles in the parde then they can't claim it's a strictly religious parade. Ireland lets the gays march as a group (in fact they won the best float last year) and the sky didn't fall. Its time for NYC prade comittee to compromise a little too.

• MikeRock | Mar 08, 2011, 10:23 AM EST

  Give it up, Mr. Roberts. The parade is a private group and LGBT under there banners are not invited. I'm sure that there are hundreds of gays and lesbians marching up 5th Avenue in the St. Patrick's Day parade and no one is discriminating against them. So what is it that you don't get?

• bern1952 | Mar 08, 2011, 10:03 AM EST

  St. Patrick's day parade is in honor of St. Patrick, a Catholic saint. It was never intended to be secular.

• eiriamach | Mar 08, 2011, 09:56 AM EST

  I could not agree more strongly. It's time to secularize the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade. Throw the bigots out! Fewer and fewer people can abide or $upport the Archdiocese's anti-gay political agenda and far-right politics in general. Your comment is so true of NY-area Irish America: "we've let a small but vocal minority set the agenda for the majority." The tyrannical minority openly practice exclusion, censorship, and silencing of women and anyone else whose politics is not ultra-conservative. Where is the Irish culture of céad míle fáilte in their shameful behavior? Intolerance and censorship are neither American nor Irish. It's time for NYC-area Irish Americans to take back the great cultural celebration that is the St. Pat's Parade.