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The large commercial beer brewer Heineken has withdrawn its support of the discriminatory St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City even after Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that he will allow city workers to march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

• RELATED : In St. Pat’s Dispute, Free Speech is Not the Issue (Gay City News)
• RELATED : New York mayor out of step with St Patrick's Day march over anti-gay ban (The Guardian)
• RELATED : LGBTQ Leaders, Allies Call on Mayor to Ban Uniformed City Personnel in Discriminatory St. Pat’s Parade (Gay City News)
• RELATED : Heineken pulls support from St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City (amNewYork)

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.

Will Hillary Clinton Speak Out On The "Kill The Gays" Bill In Uganda ?

Why isn't Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talking about the Uganda "Kill The Gays" Bill ?

Time is running out for thousands of Ugandans, who face the death penalty or life in prison if "convicted" of being gay.

It's time for the United States to escalate its diplomatic efforts to protect the human rights of LGBT Ugandans.

Forward the link to this blog post to your friends, and then sign and share these to petitions :

Our allies on the ground tell us that if Pepsi, which has a huge presence in Uganda, speaks out against the "Kill The Gays" Bill and the harmful effect it would have on investment and economic development in Uganda, it would force Ugandan officials to put the bill on hold -- or even pull it entirely. Sign the Pepsi Petition.

Citibank and Barclays -- two of the largest banks in the world -- have major operations in Uganda. Ask Citibank and Barclays to publicly condemn Uganda’s “Kill The Gays” Bill, and send a loud message to Ugandan legislators that criminalizing homosexuality with lifetime prison sentences and the death penalty won’t be supported by major international businesses. Sign the Citibank and Barclays Petition.

Meanwhile, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has no opinion about whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should escalate diplomatic efforts to protect the human rights of LGBT Ugandans.

WikiLeaks Twitter Subpoena Denies Subscribers Their Right To Due Process

The First item listed in the secret Order signed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia demands that Twitter turn over ''subscriber names'' of the five individuals associated with WikiLeaks.

On Saturday night, the WikiLeaks Twitter feed included this ominous message : ''Too late to unfollow; trick used is to demand the lists, dates and IPs of all who received our twitter messages.''

Not only have U.S. Justice Department prosecutors cast the data mining aspect of their court order on Twitter to include foreigners, but now prosecutors are trying to ensnare mere subscribers (or, in Twitter jargon, ''followers'') of the five individuals associated with WikiLeaks.

Whereas, the three foreigners, who are targets of the prosecutors' surveillance, have the option to object to the court order served on Twitter, the fact that followers have no say in fighting the reasonableness of the U.S. government's court order call into question the true scope of the legal witch hunt.

Since there appears to be a weak legal underpinning to the court orders, then, more and more, the investigations by U.S. prosecutors appear to be mere acts of retaliation against foreign political dissidents and WikiLeaks.

And caught in the middle are the followers on Twitter. If the followers are foreigners, then a U.S. court may have no jurisdiction over the free speech activities of those foreigners. And if the followers are Americans, then the Americans should be given due process, namely, an opportunity to challenge the court order. Except for harassment or retaliation, what is the purpose for the U.S. government to know who are the Twitter followers ? Certainly, there is no legal reasoning for the U.S. government to know who are the Twitter followers.

Belgrade Pride Parade Solidarity Video Draws Gay Bashing Comments

YouTube Video about New York LGBT Demonstration at the Serbian Mission Triggers Degrading, Threatening Comments

Over the last 48 hours, YouTube users have been posting harassing comments on the video about the LGBT demonstration at the Serbian Mission in New York City in support of today's Belgrade Pride Parade.

Based on these comments and sentiments, it is no wonder why there are constant reports about hate crimes, bias attacks, bullying treatment, and violent threats and injuries made against gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, and transgenders -- as well as against LGBT events, like the Parada Ponosa 2010 (the ''Belgrade Pride Parade'').

Here are some recent examples :

acesvaba

1 minute ago

dead gay is good gay

• asdfghjkl1989god

  41 minutes ago
  fuck off americans... i hope that bin laden will sucses to enter with nuclear bomb and fucking kill half of new york next time
• SunyClayZoka92

  1 hour ago
  SERBIA!!!!!!!!!!
• perthserb

  1 hour ago
  Stay the fuck out of serbia you bunch of freaks, no1 made you the police of the world... Why do you have to butt in everywhere? Gays in Serbia are not discriminated against as long as they do what they do behind their 4 walls. Stop trying to force your stupid morals on us...
• ForzaSrpska

  6 hours ago
  This has been flagged as spam   hide
  

  YOU WILL ALL SUFFER THE FATE OF TYLER CLEMENTE

Here are some earlier examples :

hypoguess

3 hours ago

Nobody would give a damn about queers if they weren't so fucking annoyingly neurotic and screechy. They insist on whining in everybody's face about how tough their lives are. Nobody cares about your dirty habits. Just keep them to yourselves.

And it is nothing to be ''proud'' of that you enjoy being a queer. What has ''pride'' got to do with where you like putting your cock?

The notion is fucking ridiculous.

JohnnyBoy501

7 hours ago 2 

Fat fuck doesn't even know what's going on. The gay pride march in Belgrade went uninterupted and was protected by 6000 police officers. The rioters didn't manage to break through the police barricades. So now go back to your own fucking problems you moron and stop protesting against things you know nothing about in countries you couldn't point out in a map.

bsdpowa

10 hours ago 7 

why the fuck do american faggots care what's going on in serbia, you have enough problems in your own country

VeseliBosanjeros

12 hours ago

This has been flagged as spam   hide

keep your faggot agenda out of serbia

milos1805

10 hours ago

Go fuck youself!

The above are an example of some of the hateful comments I've been getting. I've flagged, blocked, deleted, and reported other comments.