Showing posts with label St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Show all posts

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Irish Queers Protesting Tomorrow's Discriminatory NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade

Irish activists will protest against the decision by organizers of the Fifth Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade to deny open LGBTQ participation

The world's largest St. Patrick's Day Parade, running along New York City's tony Fifth Avenue on Monday, includes over a quarter of a million marching participants, according the parade organiser's Web site. This year, amongst the millions, who will be watching the parade from the sidelines, will be members and allies of the group Irish Queers, who will be protesting the parade's record of discriminating against open LGBTQ participation.

Numerous elected officials from Ireland and New York are refusing to march in this year's parade, members of Irish Queers claim, because organizers of the parade discriminate against open LGBTQ participants. But New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his police commissioner, William Bratton, are allowing thousands of uniformed NYPD cops and firefighters to nevertheless march in their uniforms, which sends the wrong message to LGBTQ New Yorkers, especially those who are already at risk of being targeted for harassment by the police, according to the Facebook event for the Irish Queers protest.

LGBTQ activists and allies have called on Mayor de Blasio to ban the use of official city uniforms by, for example, police and firefighters who plan to march in the parade, but the mayor refused to acquiesce to their demands. Notwithstanding, Mayor de Blasio has said that he will not participate in tomorrow's parade. Since the parade is a private event, it is allowed to discriminate against determine who participates in its event. "The city, however, bound by its human rights law, does not have the right to lend its authority and stamp of approval to that discrimination. And it does have the right to determine when its workers can use their uniforms and other symbols of their employment in public settings," wrote Paul Schindler, the editor of Gay City News, in the LGBTQ's rebuttal to the mayor's denial.

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito issued a separate statement, informing the the LGBTQ community that she would not authorize an official City Council contingency in the discriminatory St. Patrick's Day Parade, but she would not ban City Council employees from participating. Last year, Speaker Mark-Viverito sparked controversy when she hired the lobbyist Scott Levenson to work on her speakership campaign. Mr. Levenson, and his lobbying firm, The Advance Group, worked for the City Action Coalition PAC, which lists 'traditional marriage' as its platform and supported opponents of gay City Council candidates. Questions were also raised by bloggers whether Mr. Levenson sabotaged LGBTQ civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland's political campaign ?

In contrast to the timid city officials, the large commercial beer brewer Heineken announced last week and the makers of Guinness announced today that they had withdrawn their support of the discriminatory St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.

Protesters are gathering at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow between 56th and 57th Streets on the westside of Fifth Avenue (basically, across the street from Tiffany & Co.).

RSVP for the protest here : Cops Out or Queers In ! Protest the Fifth Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade ! (Facebook)

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Is Bill de Blasio doing enough about St. Patrick's Day Parade's LGBT discrimination controversy ?

PUBLISHED : SAT, 08 MAR 2014, 10:10 PM
UPDATED : SAT, 15 MAR 2014, 03:09 PM

The large commercial beer brewer Heineken has withdrawn its support of the discriminatory St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City even after Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that he will allow city workers to march in uniform in the parade, which bans open LGBT participation.

"Bill de Blasio is the first New York mayor for 21 years to boycott the St. Patrick's Day parade over its ban on gay participants – but is he doing enough ?" asked Ed Pilkington in The Guardian.

LGBT New Yorkers, activists, allies, and several community groups have beseeched Mayor Bill de Blasio to ban city employees from wearing their city uniforms if they plan to participate in the discriminatory St. Patrick's Day Parade that runs on Fifth Avenue. Opponents of the discriminatory parade charge that by allowing city employees to wear their uniform to the parade, the municipal government is tacitly endorsing the parade organizers' discrimination against open LGBT participants.

The mayor has announced that he is not marching in the parade on March 17, but his police commissioner, William Bratton, will be marching, along with other city employees, who are being allowed by the mayor to participate in their city uniforms.

The mayor's Council speaker has announced that she will not allow a formal City Council contingent to participate, but she is allowing City Council employees to participate unofficially, if they so choose.

All of this allows the St. Patrick's Day Parade to continue its discrimination against open LGBT participation, notwithstanding the minuscule steps taken by the mayor and his Council speaker, and this leaves many LGBT activists upset that the mayor may actually be violating the city's human rights law that bans discrimination, as alluded to in a recent editorial in Gay City News. If city resources are used to support or endorse the discriminatory policies of the parade, LGBT activists may have a case to request a court-ordered injunction that would could bar city employees from wearing their city uniforms in the parade or the use of other city resources for the parade. It remains to be seen what course of action LGBT activists take between now and March 17, the date of the parade.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Holyoke False Arrest USDC Massachusetts Ruling

Robert Levine vs Holyoke Massachusetts PD - St. Patricks Day Parade Arrest - First Amendment

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Hold Christine Quinn Accountable : Stop LGBT Discrimination by the St. Patrick's Fifth Avenue Parade

Talk Is Cheap

Youtube.com — What has City Council Speaker Christine Quinn done to end the St. Patrick's Day Fifth Avenue Parade's discrimination against LGBT participants ? Nothing. Make a request to Speaker Quinn to back-up her words with action : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us

Friday, February 11, 2011

Bloomberg Calls the Irish, "Inebriated"

Irish Eyes Not Smiling Over Mayor Bloomberg's Inebriated Insensitivity

Mayor Bloomberg described Irish New Yorkers as being ''inebriated,'' and he added that he was accustomed to seeing drunken Irish ''hanging out the windows'' of the American Irish Historical Society in their drunken state.

The mayor's insult came during a speech he gave at the American Irish Historical Society, and his disparaging remarks triggered boos from the audience.

In an article about the insult, The New York Times quoted John Dunleavy, the chairman of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, said the mayor’s words were “outrageous and totally uncalled for.”