Catholics generally receive a dispensation from the Lenten
abstinence obligation whenever St. Patrick's Day falls on a
Friday. The festive feast day celebrating the patron saint of
Ireland has been a religious holiday as big as Christmas on the
Emerald Isle. Why, then, has it become a political football
pitting the gay community against the Fifth Avenue parade
organizers celebrating their Irish heritage in this country? What
on earth does one's sexual orientation have to do with a popular
saint who, legend has it, drove the snakes out of Ireland?
More than likely, innumerable gays have been marching incognito
in the famed stroll since the first parade was held in the
colonial city in 1762. Gay rights groups, however, have been
fighting court battles to get the right to march openly under
their banner since 1991. Politicians risk censure from gay and
lesbian organizations if they march in the Manhattan parade.
Those who seek the support of these organizations march in
Queens, which welcomes lesbians, gays, and transgenders in the
Parade-for-All, which takes place weeks earlier.
It's inevitable that just before March 17 we hear about a
man-on-the-street poll asking, "Do you think gays should be
allowed to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade?" The
answer is always unanimously, "Of course," which is the
correct answer. However, because the parade actually has a
specifically Catholic connection, shouldn't the question be,
"Do you think a group that endorses behavior contrary to
church teaching should be able to march under a banner
proclaiming that fact?"
It's much easier to call the parade organizers homophobic and to
claim persecution than to talk honestly about the core issue. The
Catholic Church does not condemn same-sex love. There is never
anything wrong with such a beautiful emotion. It does, however,
limit its sanctioning of sexual activity to married couples and
it views heterosexual acts outside of marriage as equally wrong
as homosexual acts.
Why is it just this parade that carries the accusation of
homophobia? I don't recall similar campaigns or court battles
involving other ethnic or nationalist celebrations. It's obvious
that it's the involvement of the Catholic Church that creates the
controversy, and again I have to ask, What does sexual
orientation have to do with the parade unless it's to express
contempt for church teaching? I've always found church
admonitions similar to benevolent parental warnings: Do not do
this or else this will happen, etc. The fact is, monogamous
married couples rarely suffer the misery of sexually transmitted
diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea, and AIDS.
When I lived in Spanish Harlem in my youth, I used to watch all
the Fifth Avenue parades, which usually began or ended around
96th Street. My favorite parade was the Armed Forces Day Parade,
which had the best bands and the handsomest uniformed men from
all the service branches, along with tanks and military hardware.
I even have a photograph taken in 1964 of what appears to be a
guided missile on a truck bed. It was our own May Day show of
force and during the Cold War, a display that made us all feel a
little safer. Anti-Vietnam War protesters pelting the marching
soldiers with pig's blood put an end to that parade.
Parading aside, March 17 in the 1960s and '70s was the biggest
night for singles bars like the Mad Hatter on the Upper East
Side. Everyone wore green and girls drew shamrocks on their
cheeks. These establishments were filled with visiting European
rugby players; happy hour meant free drinks for the women; the
jukeboxes blared hits from the Clancy Brothers, and "Danny
Boy" inevitably sparked a drunken sing-along.
None of the bacchanalian excesses had anything to do with the
religious parade, either, but at least the once-a-year feast day
had the element of fun rather than being a reminder of a social
agenda. I may not be Irish, but I can't help but miss the way it
used to be.