Gay activists tout victory at NYC St. Patrick’s Parade, pro-life groups remain shut out
The 255th annual parade meant to celebrate the Feast
of St. Patrick in New
York City is instead being touted as a victory for the homosexual movement.
"I never thought I'd see the day when I could march up
Fifth Avenue in the St. Patrick's Day Parade with my husband," said
Brendan Fay, chairman of the Lavender
and Green Alliance, the second homosexual activist group allowed to march in the
NYC Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. "When we started in 1991, after getting
arrested so many times for protesting the parade, wow, what a moment this
is."
The Lavender and Green group follows OUT@NBCUniversal, a pro-homosexual group for
NBC employees that was allowed to march in the 2015 parade after decades of
pressure from homosexual activists demanding to be allowed to march with an
identifying banner, and organizers disposing of the parade’s long-standing
policy to maintain focus on Irish heritage.
“We Won!” was the headline of the Irish
Queers press
release last fall after the Lavender and Green group was approved, with a
spokesperson calling the move “a total victory.”
The New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade website states the parade is held “in honor of St. Patrick,
the Patron Saint of Ireland and of the Archdiocese of New York.”
However officials were impervious to Catholics
scandalized by their
changing the event to one celebrating the homosexual lifestyle.
The deviation from previous policy was to include also
acceptance of a pro-life group to march as well, a commitment made by the
parade committee that has not been kept, with the last two years having
homosexual activist groups march, but no pro-life group.
The Children First Foundation (CFF) had applied for the 2015
parade and been rejected.
The parade committee never returned Personhood Education New
York founder Dawn Eskew’s phone calls or emails inquiring into how her pro-life
group could apply to march in this year’s parade, Eskew told the National Catholic Register.
“What bothers me is that they never responded,” she said.
“This will be the most inclusive parade in the 255-year history
of the parade,” parade chair John Lahey said before this year’s event,
according to an NBC New York report. “And
really I think it will be the most unifying parade in the past 25 years.”
Lahey, president of Quinnipiac University, is the one who
publicly backtracked
on the parade committee promise to allow a
pro-life group last year, telling the media, “That won’t be happening.”
“What we want to do is keep 2015 focused on the gesture of
goodwill we made towards the gay community with the inclusion of OUT@NBCUniversal.”
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (Catholic
League) pulled out
of the parade last year
after 20 years of participation, the group’s president Bill Donohue calling it
indefensible that parade organizers had promised him a pro-life group would be
allowed but then only permitting the pro-homosexual group.
“We were double-crossed,” CFF President Elizabeth Rex said. “I
would never apply again because I fear they could then actually use our
entrance to allow pro-abortion groups to march. It’s going to be the end of the
St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which it already is.”
“They’re claiming a complete victory for tolerance,” she said,
“but no, they are intolerant to Catholics who believe that life is sacred at
the moment of conception.”
Rex was part of a group of Catholics who held a prayer protest
today on the 5th Avenue, praying the rosary during the parade.
After organizers turned from the parade’s Irish Catholic focus
last year Catholicswere further
disheartened when New
York Cardinal Timothy Dolan not only did not condemn the parade committee
decision, but actually called it wise, and then took part in the parade as the 2015 grand marshal.
Cardinal Dolan tried this year to reclaim the
parade’s religious foundation, writingon his blog on March 15, “We cannot
observe the St. Patrick’s Day Parade without celebrating both our ethnic and
religious heritage.”
He pointed out in his column how the parade was established to
honor St. Patrick.
“It is important, especially given the strong secular currents
in our society today, that we not forget why this parade exists,” the cardinal
wrote. “It is not just the Irish Parade: We march to honor St.
Patrick. That is why so many cringe at and resist pleas to weaken the
Catholic origins of the parade.”
“While everyone is invited to march in the parade and all are
welcome,” he continued, “no one is permitted to use it for causes that are
extrinsic to its origins.”
But the cardinal went on to thank parade organizers for
“assuring us all that the original intent of the parade, which has flourished
for over two-and-a-half centuries – – to celebrate the faith, heritage,
culture, and tradition of Ireland – – is preserved.”
Pro-abortion, pro-homosexual New York
Gov. Andrew
Cuomo and the
whole New York City Council took part in the 2016 parade as well, as did New
York City MayorBill de
Blasio, also an abortion proponent who previously boycotted the parade for not
allowing homosexual activist groups to march.
An estimated 2 million-plus spectators watched the New York
parade on the streets of Manhattan, and in another first, it was also broadcast
live in Ireland and the U.K. by the Irish TV television channel.
