Apparently gay people are not allowed to be Irish either....Ughhhh!

[tackleberry]

I am so sick of this!!! Comparing gays to the KKK and Neo Nazis???? Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NEW YORK (AP) -- Protesters joined bagpipers, marching bands and thousands of flag-waving spectators at the St. Patrick's Day parade Friday after the parade's chairman compared gay Irish-American activists to neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and prostitutes.

As huge, happy crowds lined the streets, the chairman, John Dunleavy, sidestepped questions about his remarks to The Irish Times.

"Today is St. Patrick's Day. We celebrate our faith and heritage, everything else is secondary," he said before the start of the Fifth Avenue parade.

Dunleavy set off a firestorm this week when he told the newspaper: "If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow Neo-Nazis into their parade? If African Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?"

Referring to the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization, Dunleavy said, "People have rights. If we let the ILGO in, is it the Irish Prostitute Association next?"

On Thursday, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is gay, blasted Dunleavy for the comments. Quinn, who is Irish, declined to participate in the parade after organizers barred an Irish gay and lesbian group from marching under its own banner for a 16th straight year.

"I can't deny who I am on any given day," said Quinn, who was arrested in 1999 for protesting at an exclusionary parade in the Bronx.

Quinn said the city's Irish gays had long hoped to march with their own banner, like other groups, but were willing to walk with the City Council as a unified group. "There were moments where I was hopeful that we could have come to some agreement. But that didn't happen."

Dunleavy told The New York Times in Friday's editions that Quinn "is more than welcome to march as the leader of the City Council, but no buttons or decorations in any shape or form."

Police on scooters positioned themselves between the marchers and about a dozen gay-rights protesters, who chanted: "We can march in Dublin, we can march in Cork, why can't we march in New York?"

Also barred from the parade was the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, which lobbies on behalf of undocumented Irish immigrants in the United States.

Efforts to let Irish gays march under their own banner date to 1991, when parade organizers first rejected an ILGO application. When 35 ILGO members marched with a Manhattan division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and then-Mayor David Dinkins, they were sprayed with beer and insults. It was the group's last appearance in the parade, which draws up to 2 million spectators.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was marching Friday, had urged the Hibernians to change their stance.

"I've always believed this is a city where all the parades should be open to everybody, and orientation, gender ... should not be the deciding thing," he said.

The mayor marched earlier this month in an inclusive St. Patrick's parade in Queens.

The city's main parade, with 150,000 marchers, is the nation's oldest and largest.

Scores of bagpipers, high school bands and Irish societies streamed past crowds waving Irish flags or wearing green hats, green carnations or green shamrocks painted on their faces.

Spectator Mary Sweeney, who moved to New York from Ireland 15 years ago with her two daughters, said, "I want them to grow up knowing their Irish heritage. Everyone wants to be Irish today."

 

[Irvine511]

 

[yolland]

"We can march in Dublin, we can march in Cork, why can't we march in New York?"

This wouldn't be the first time some Irish-Americans took stances that shocked and disappointed people back "home." I read a very interesting book not long ago called How the Irish Became White, about Irish-Americans and race in the US...slavery had been illegal in Ireland for centuries, and many Irish visitors to the US in the pre-Civil-War area were repulsed to see how many Irish-Americans had come to support slavery.

 

[nbcrusader]

How are gays like the KKK and Neo Nazis???

 

[verte76]

This is deplorable.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I read that in the paper this morning, that guy is one of the few people who could make me embarrassed to be Irish. Maybe one day he'll wake up and realize how sick and wrong he is, but I highly doubt it.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Brendan Fay
You know the song—`When Irish eyes are smiling, all the world seems bright and gay.....

Well, not on Fifth Avenue.

Bloody gays and their rapier wit

 

[Party Boy]

There has always been an issue between the New York parade and gays - I remember growing up back in Ireland and listening to the controversy. Unfortunately there are still some very very conservative Irish people around (mostly in Ireland) who really shouldnt be let near any public forum.

 

[the iron horse]

"I am so sick of this!!!"


Sick of what?

Free speech?

People expression their religious views?

What should we do?

Round them all up and send them to concentration camps?



I'm sick of intolrence.

 

[VertigoGal]

it's not so much that people should be denied the right to express their views...only that their views are disgusting and ugly and repulsive, and people have a right to express that.

where, pray tell, does the bible command that the gay and lesbian community shalt be forbidden from the st. paddy's day parade? give it a rest.

 

[A_Wanderer]

"I am so sick of this!!!"


Sick of what?

Free speech?

People expression their religious views?

What should we do?

Round them all up and send them to concentration camps?



I'm sick of intolrence.

Not when your getting taxpayers money!

Have as many white only, hetero only, gay only, atheist only groups as you want if you are using member money, but when its taxpayer money it has to be inclusive and cannot sanction bigotry.

 

[the iron horse]

I always vote Libertarian here in the U.S.

So, I guess you guys have me in a twix on this point.


Or not!

Why is my tax money being used to fund a parade???

 

[VertigoGal]

it's good for the city?

 

[Cabcere]

How are gays like the KKK and Neo Nazis???

That's what I'd like to know. Maybe I'm just being incredibly dense here, but I'm really not seeing a connection...

 

[BVS]

Why is my tax money being used to fund a parade???

Maybe the same reason my insurance dollars are covering people who refuse to wear helmets and seatbelts...

 

[A_Wanderer]

No, you elect to pay insurance to a private insurance company - you cannot elect to not pay taxes and not recieve state benefits.

 

[BVS]

No, you elect to pay insurance to a private insurance company - you cannot elect to not pay taxes and not recieve state benefits.

Um, no here in the states you can't drive without insurance.

Yes other insurances are "optional", but mostly in theory. Just like taxes.

 

[A_Wanderer]

The argument for minimum level third party insurance probably falls under public good ~ in fact it is a guarantee of restitution due to property damage against the third party thus logically consistent.

In this case you have a parade for an ethnic/nationalist group that is being subsidised with public money. It is not there to protect anything. Here in Melbourne we have had to put up the bloody Commonwealth (Empire) Games, it costs more money than it will bring in, there is no competition in the games (Australia leading against England 117 to 55 medals, 44 gold versus 18). In the case of the games it is a worse waste of public money. In the case of a parade it still isn't what should be done with public money, what should be done is tax cuts.

If they don't want gays then they should fund it themselves, if somebody wants a gay inclusive rally then they should have the right to hold one (and if it gets public money then it has to be able to include gays).

 

[U2doggie]

Well said, BVS!!!!

 

[nbcrusader]

That's what I'd like to know. Maybe I'm just being incredibly dense here, but I'm really not seeing a connection...

I'm not sure one was ever articulated, or even seriously suggested.

But it makes a good attention grabbing headline.

 

[Irvine511]

[BPeople expression their religious views?

I'm sick of intolrence. [/B]

when a religious belief becomes tantamount to intolerance, it's the religious belief that has to find another form of expression -- i'm so sick of this, people using religion to justify their bigotry and then crying "religious discrimination" whenever someone calls them on it.

my right not to be excluded and discriminated against and made to feel uncomfortable on the basis of an immutable characteristic than harms no one absolutely trumps your "right" to religious expression.

just replace the words "gay" with "black" or "baptist" and see how it sounds.

also, why do you think that voting libertarian gives you some sort of free pass?

 

[tackleberry]

I'm not sure one was ever articulated, or even seriously suggested.

But it makes a good attention grabbing headline.

Ummm. This dude is saying you wouldn't allow a KKK member at a black rally nor a Nazi at a Jewish rally, and you shouldn't allow a gay person at a catholic parade. This is a PRETTY CLEAR connection. All equating to some sort of "evil" nature towards a peaceful gathering. This dude is messed up. And an obvious Bigot.

Just another weak, homophobic man who thinks a gay man is going to have sex with him at his parade. It's 2006. Open up your mind a little. Use some common sense.

He Makes me

 

[nbcrusader]

Ummm. This dude is saying you wouldn't allow a KKK member at a black rally nor a Nazi at a Jewish rally, and you shouldn't allow a gay person at a catholic parade. This is a PRETTY CLEAR connection. All equating to some sort of "evil" nature towards a peaceful gathering. This dude is messed up. And an obvious Bigot.

Just another weak, homophobic man who thinks a gay man is going to have sex with him at his parade. It's 2006. Open up your mind a little. Use some common sense.

He Makes me

It is an analogy to allowing people with opposing viewpoints at the same event.

It is not an analogy that gays "are like" the KKK or the Nazis.

Claiming the connection is a cheap way to demonize one side of the argument - instead of discussing the issue.

Groups are not permitted to march in parades all the time. How an organizer "gets to" determine the participants will vary depending on a number of factors, specifically government involvement in the event.

 

[tackleberry]

True. But it is "equating" them to the KKK. It is putting them on the same level.

And why would this guy use such a strong example, such an extreme example to make his point if he didn't in some way equate these groups with gays.

And come on man, they were trying to march in the IRISH St. Patty's Day parade. It's not like they were trying to march in the "Straight Men and Women Only Invited Parade"

Come on....

 

[nbcrusader]

True. But it is "equating" them to the KKK. It is putting them on the same level.

And why would this guy use such a strong example, such an extreme example to make his point if he didn't in some way equate these groups with gays.

And come on man, they were trying to march in the IRISH St. Patty's Day parade. It's not like they were trying to march in the "Straight Men and Women Only Invited Parade"

Come on....

Why did YOU pick the KKK side of the equation?

The analogy was with the KKK and African Americans. You decided that the gays were the same as the KKK. Dunleavy didn't make that connection.

There is no suggestion that the gay group seeking to participate in the parade is anything like the KKK - nor should there be, nor could there be.

 

[phanan]

It is an analogy to allowing people with opposing viewpoints at the same event.

And a very poor analogy at that.

 

[tackleberry]

Why did YOU pick the KKK side of the equation?

The analogy was with the KKK and African Americans. You decided that the gays were the same as the KKK. Dunleavy didn't make that connection.

There is no suggestion that the gay group seeking to participate in the parade is anything like the KKK - nor should there be, nor could there be.

I am not trying to amplify what is already present. Dunleavy is essentially saying in this article, that allowing gays to march in the St. Paddy's day parade is the same as letting the KKK march in a black parade.

I don't know what you see in this article, but that's what I see, and I would assume that's what most of the folks who posted in this thread see.

 

[Irvine511]

Here in Melbourne we have had to put up the bloody Commonwealth (Empire) Games, it costs more money than it will bring in, there is no competition in the games (Australia leading against England 117 to 55 medals, 44 gold versus 18).

yes, your women's swim team is tearing shit up, they've been amazingly impressive this week and just obliterated the world record in the relay.

the men are missing Hackett and Thorpie, however.

 

[nbcrusader]

And a very poor analogy at that.

That is true. While I am not Irish, I do not see the same visceral reaction of fear/hatred as you do when you mix the other groups mentioned.

 

[Irvine511]

Why did YOU pick the KKK side of the equation?

The analogy was with the KKK and African Americans. You decided that the gays were the same as the KKK. Dunleavy didn't make that connection.

There is no suggestion that the gay group seeking to participate in the parade is anything like the KKK - nor should there be, nor could there be.

wrong. he's basically given us an SAT analogy:


the KKK is to African-Americas as _______ are to Irish Catholics:

A) homos
B) gays
C) homosexualists
D) lesbians
E) the English