------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 27, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
NEW YORK ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE: “LIFT THE BIGOTED BAN!”
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg marched in the city's St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 17, despite censure from lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans groups here and in Ireland. Organizers of the annual parade bar LGBT people from marching under their own banners.
"After blocking a permit for a peaceful anti-war march on Feb. 15, Mayor Bloomberg is now supporting the city's largest annual display of homophobia. I repeat: New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade is the largest annual, city-supported display of homophobia –in the U.S. and around the world," charged Dian Killian at a Feb. 27 news conference at City Hall. Killian is a member of United Auto Workers Local 1981 and is on the steering committee of Pride at Work-N.Y.--the lesbian, gay, bi and trans constituency group of the AFL-CIO.
On March 15, members of Belfast's LGBT community protested the bigoted exclusion. They have demonstrated this solidarity with the New York LGBT community every year since 1993. The Castle Street picket took place outside the office of Aer Lingus. The airline was targeted because it is one of the main corporate sponsors of the New York parade.
P.A. MagLochlainn, president of the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association, stated, "Gay women and men can take part in St. Patrick's Day Parades in Dublin, Cork and Belfast--but they cannot in New York. The parade in New York has been multi-ethnic for years, but the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America bans gay people from the parade. This bigoted ban is long since out of date."
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