Free Republic

Supporting immigration is the theme of this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan, a march up Fifth Avenue that passes President Donald Trump’s namesake tower, near 56th Street, along the route. Five Latino immigrants will help lead the 257-year-old parade by marching with Grand Marshal Brian O’Dwyer, an activist and immigration lawyer — bookended by fellow marchers from the New York National Guard’s Fighting 69th and the NYPD delegation, according to parade committee spokesman Bob Liff.

They spent decades on the sidelines every March 17 loudly protesting their exclusion from the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade, and proclaimed victory last year with the inclusion of the first Irish gay group, the Lavender and Green Alliance, but the protest group called Irish Queers appears to have had enough of the Fifth Avenue march after only a year and won’t take part in 2017. In a new post on its blog titled “Sorry not sorry! Join us this St. Patrick’s Day!,” a message from Irish Queers says the group will be “repping Irish America at a...

A gay veterans group said Wednesday it has been denied permission to march in this year’s Boston St. Patrick’s Day parade just two years after organizers made the groundbreaking decision to allow gay groups to participate for the first time. OutVets, which marched in Boston’s 2015 St. Patrick’s Day parade after decades of resistance from organizers, said on its Facebook page that the reason for the denial to this year’s parade is unclear, but “one can only assume it’s because we are LGBTQ.”

Homosexual advocates are celebrating today’s St. Patrick Day parade in New York City with a new twist on a beloved Irish ballad. “Gay Irish eyes are smiling,” the March 4 article posted on the Advocate’s website begins, citing the fact that homosexual groups will be participating in the parade and so will Mayor Bill De Blasio. […] The Advocate article noted that last year Out@NBCUniversal was the first LGBT group allowed to march, but that other groups were not included. NBC is an official sponsor of the parade, the Advocate article said. …

Mayor Bill de Blasio is ending a two-year boycott of the nation's largest St. Patrick's Day parade now that it has fully dropped its longstanding ban on allowing gay and lesbian groups to march under their own banners. De Blasio, a first-term Democrat, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that for the first time he will take part in the parade along Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. He skipped the parade in 2014, when no gay groups were allowed to openly march, and he skipped again last year, when only one small lesbian, gay, bisexual and...

<p>So Mark Levin, as predicted, went Beck on us imho (Glen Beck).</p> <p>As fully expected, since he was already building up to it the day before, he is egging on this line of attack on Trump as reflecting "New York Values" - Cruz was told not to go there prior to the debate, but foolishly he went there, and there couldn't have been a more moronic move and insulting to all the 911 first responders, New York's finest, the NYC consruction workers, et all, and ... all just to try and take out Trump?</p>

Restaurant owners can't require ties for male diners only. Gyms can't tell clients which locker room to use. And in most cases, an employer can't put "John" on a worker's ID if she prefers "Jane." New York City's Human Rights Commission is establishing what advocates called some of the most powerful guidelines nationwide on gender-identity discrimination, releasing specifics Monday to flesh out broad protections in a 2002 law. "Today's guidance makes it abundantly clear what the city considers to be discrimination," which can lead to fines of up to $250,000, Commissioner Carmelyn P. Malalis said in a statement. Officials said...

Dr. John Lahey, the chairman of NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Inc., the legal corporation responsible for the parade, has forcefully hit back at critics who charge that he and members of the corporation’s board are attempting to secularize the march and erase the influence of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the parade’s affiliated organizations. […] Lahey also had a strong message for the AOH and the 170 organizations affiliated with the St. Patrick’s Day parade: There are no underhanded attempts underway to lessen their influence on the parade in any way, and a campaign by supporters of current...

St. Patrick’s Day Parade chairman John Dunleavy has been ousted after 22 years after a decades-long dispute over the inclusion of gay groups at the annual march down Fifth Ave., according to a report. The decision, made Tuesday afternoon after a meeting involving the parade’s board, comes just four days after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the United States.

John Dunleavy, the chairman of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade, is shopping the parade broadcast rights to other local networks because NBC insisted on the inclusion of a gay marching group in this year’s event, multiple sources tell the Irish Voice. Also, speaking at a parade lunch in April, Dunleavy said gay groups would “have a problem” securing a slot in next year’s line of march. The local NBC affiliate, Channel 4, has aired the Fifth Avenue parade live for several years, but was prepared to end its coverage in 2015 if organizers failed to include a...

NEWARK, New Jersey, Apr. 4, 01 (CWNews.com/LSN.ca) - Father Peter West, a staff member at the Priests for Life group in New Jersey, was recently physically thrown out of a Catholic school hall while a pro-abortion politician was being honored inside.    While not a Priests for Life-sponsored event, Father West and a group of 15 pro-lifers protested the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Newark on Sunday, March 18. Their complaint was that pro-abortion politician Jim McGreevey, the Democrat candidate for governor, was appointed grand marshal of the parade. Father West noted that much of the parade and events afterward...

In Boston and New York, persons with same-sex inclinations representing gay activist groups are marching openly for the first time in Saint Patrick’s Day parades after years of lobbying and court battles. In Boston, two LGBT groups have been invited to participate in the parade “honoring” Saint Patrick – Out Vets and Boston Pride. In New York, Out@NBC-Universal will be allowed to march in the parade for the first time.These groups reject Catholic teaching on the immorality of homosexual acts and advocate for same-sex “marriage.” The Church is on the defensive, and Church leaders are concerned about appearing intolerant. Of course,...

BOSTON (AP) — The St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston will make history this Sunday as two gay and lesbian groups join the fun. The advocacy group Boston Pride and OutVets, a group of gay military veterans, have been welcomed by the organizers. "This is a tremendous leap forward," Boston Pride organizer Sylvain Bruni said Friday. Until now, gay rights groups have been barred by the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council from marching in the parade, which draws as many as a million spectators each year. Twenty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the organizers' right to keep...

These companies pulled out of the St. Patrick's day parade because gay advocacy groups were not allowed to march under their own banner. Here is a list of all the brands involved: Beer: GUINESS, SAM ADAMS, Tusker, Smithwick’s, Red Stripe, Harp Lager, Kilkenny, Kaliber, Windhoek, HEINEKEN, Amstel, Buckler, Beamish & Crawford, Murphy’s, Tui Scotch whisky: Johnnie Walker, Buchanan’s, Cardhu, Justerini & Brooks (J&B), Bell’s, Black & White, White Horse, Logan, Caol Ila, Vat 69, Oban, Talisker, Lagavulin, Glen Ord, Glenkinchie, Dalwhinnie, Cragganmore, Clynelish, Singleton, Haig, Royal Lochnagar, Glen Elgin, Knockando, The Dimple Pinch Vodka: Smirnoff, Cîroc, Silent Sam, Popov, Ketel...

Jesus reached out to harlots. He did not reach out to their harlotry. Jesus reached out to hypocrites, often with a rhetorical fist to capture their attention. He did not reach out to their hypocrisy. He reached out to tax collectors, those half-traitors to their nation. He did not reach out to their treachery.I am imagining a parade down Main Street of Anyville.It’s the typical American parade. Some people are tootling on flutes, braying out almost-G on the trumpet, or banging the big bass drum. A group of high school girls in short skirts dance and twirl their batons....

The Catholic League said Thursday that it will sit out next year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York because event organizers aren’t letting an anti-abortion group march. The group, formally known as the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has been marching for 20 years, said its president, Bill Donohue. …

Extreme political, cultural and economic forces are colluding to secularize the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City, argues William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. "If it gets to the point where the Catholic element is completely diluted, then I will no longer march in the parade," Donohue told Aleteia two days after the St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee agreed to allow a group of gay NBC Universal employees to march under its own banner in the 2015 parade. In a written statement provided to the Associated Press, the parade committee said...

NEW YORK — Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s positive reaction to this week’s decision by organizers of New York’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade to allow gay groups to march under their own banners initially drew charitable responses in many Catholic Church circles. But it didn’t take long for conservative church critics to turn. After initially signaling his grudging acceptance, William Donohue of the Catholic League came back with a revised view when he realized that more than one gay group could be allowed to march in the future.

A decision by organizers of the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade to allow one gay organization to march is a disappointment after decades of fighting by gay groups for full participation, several advocates said Wednesday. Some were dismayed that the organizers had chosen just one lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group to participate next year after ending a ban on them. Others expressed continuing mistrust. Nathan Schaefer, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, called the announcement “disappointing and self-serving.” …

New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade will finally end its ban on gay groups marching in its annual Irish celebration, organizers said Wednesday. OUT@NBCUniversal—a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender affinity group at 30 Rock—will be flying its banner and marching up Fifth Avenue on March 17, officials said. That’ll be the only gay group marching in the 2015 version of the world’s largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade, but other LGBT groups can apply in future years, spokesman Bill O’Reilly said. …