Pro-life advocates held a protest during the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade, saying they were once again excluded from marching under their own banner even though LGBTQ groups have been welcome to do so for a decade.
Irish Pro-Life USA led a sidewalk demonstration along the parade route on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan during Monday’s festivities, billed as the oldest and largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the world.
John Aidan Byrne, president of Irish Pro-Life USA, called the situation “shameful.”
“This is disturbing and troubling: Ten years after parade organizers said it would open the parade to pro-life groups marching under their own banners, we have been sidelined and marginalized, once again,” Mr. Byrne said in a statement Monday.
“Each year our pro-life group applies to march under our banner, we are either ignored or rejected by the parade as if we are a nuisance,” he said.
He referred to the 2014 rift between organizers and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights that occurred as the parade came under pressure to include LGBTQ groups marching under their own banner, despite its policy against political signs and advocacy.
Then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio boycotted the 2014 parade and several corporate sponsors dropped their support over what they described as discrimination.
Catholic League President William Donohue, who was involved in parade public relations for 20 years, said he told organizers he would not object to including an LGBTQ group as long as the parade made a formal rule change and also agreed to allow pro-life groups.
“The latter was important because Donohue had been telling the media for decades that gays and pro-life people have always been free to march in the parade; they just could not do so under their own banner. He was assured that would happen,” said the Catholic League in a March 3 post, “St. Pat’s NYC Milestone March: Ten Years of Betrayal.”
When parade organizers later declined to include a pro-life group, the Catholic League responded by pulling its contingent from the 2015 parade. The conservative Catholic group has boycotted the event ever since.
The first LGBTQ group to march was Out@NBC, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Straight Ally Employee Alliance at NBCUniversal, which broadcasts the annual parade.
Out@NBC participated once again in Monday’s celebration, as did the Lavender and Green Alliance, a group that celebrates “Irish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Culture and Identity.”
The Washington Times has reached out to parade organizers for comment.
Other pro-life groups supporting the protest Monday included Personhood Education NY; New York State Right To Life; Tradition, Family and Property; LIFE Runners; and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.
“The Catholic Action League is privileged to support the courageous efforts of John Byrne and Irish Pro-Life USA to reform New York’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, and recall it to the purpose of its founders – to commemorate the Catholic saint who evangelized Ireland and Christianized the Irish people,” said C.J. Doyle, executive director of Boston’s Catholic Action League.
He said that the “feast of Saint Patrick must not be reduced to a mere cultural festival celebrating ethnic pride. It is a Catholic holy day in honor of a Catholic saint.”
About 2 million spectators turn out each year to view the 264th annual parade featuring at least 150,000 participants, including Irish-themed organizations, school marching bands, military regiments, police and fire delegations, and elected officials.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, was on hand to greet marchers from the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, also a parade tradition.
