Andrea Peyser

Andrea Peyser

US News

De Blasio wins no fans with St. Patrick’s Day Parade boycott

Mayor de Blasio drew a line in the sand when he marched through Sunnyside, Queens, last week in the gay-friendly St. Pat’s for All parade. Posing for pictures with the manly Irish drag queen known as Panti Bliss, who rocked false eyelashes, lipstick and enough foundation makeup to support a three-story building, the mayor could not hide a horrified expression plastered on his face that screamed silently — “Help me!”

He needs all the help he can get.

If you thought Hizzoner’s public stand alongside New York’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals would bring him fans or a coveted spot next to transvestite Lady Bunny at this summer’s NYC Gay Pride March, you’d be mistaken. De Blasio would be lucky to nab a stool in a Greenwich Village gay bar.

De Blasio announced last month that he’s boycotting the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, set to run up Fifth Avenue March 17, in solidarity with homosexuals, who are prohibited from carrying banners, waving signs or wearing lapel pins that identify their sexual persuasions. Public Advocate Letitia James will be a no-show. Any City Council member who dares march won’t wave a city government sign, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito decreed.

Guess what — no one cheered.

De Blasio didn’t win any love in the gay community when he gave his blessing to city workers in uniform, including cops and firefighters, plus Police Commissioner William Bratton, to participate in the festivities. He maintains they have a constitutional right to free expression.

“We’re angry. Frustrated would be a better word,’’ Emmaia Gelman, an organizer for the group Irish Queers, told me.

Gelman said her outfit is considering suing the city, claiming parade rules violate city human-rights laws.

The mayor also angered members of the city’s Irish-Catholic community who see his boycott as no less than an expression of intolerance.

“De Blasio, he has no respect for diversity,’’ William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, told me.

“I really find this very scary. I’ve been kicked by lesbians in the street!” In the mid-1990s, Donohue said, he was physically attacked while taking pictures of lesbians assembling in front of the Mid-Manhattan Library on Fifth Avenue on the morning of the parade.

“You’re dealing with people who are fascist.”

Let me clear up one misconception. Gays are not banned from this parade. Everyone, whether Irish, Jewish, Hindu or pansexual, is welcome to attend the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the nation’s largest. The event dates to 1762, when the British still ran this country, New York was more than a century away from acquiring five boroughs, and people still friended each other in person.

All can attend — provided they don’t carry signs identifying themselves as gay.

Or straight.

Or vegan, neo-Nazi or pro-gun, to name just a few categories. Civic groups and colleges can carry signs.

So the mayor’s stubborn insistence on skipping the parade (he also did so while serving as public advocate from 2010 to 2013) has nothing to do with gay exclusion. It has everything to do with de Blasio’s lack of respect for people with whom he disagrees.

If the parade opens up to groups whose members identify themselves by bedroom activities, then how can parade organizers justify stopping skinheads, abortion foes or members of the North American Man/Boy Love Association from waving banners?

The parade “is a celebration of Irish heritage and culture — nothing more, nothing less,” Hilary Beirne, executive secretary of NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which organizes the event, last month told The Wall Street Journal.

“There’s another parade in New York City that celebrates being gay and being lesbian, and that’s the Gay Pride Parade,’’ Beirne said.

Things have been quiet along the parade route since Mayor David Dinkins skipped the event back in 1993. Mayor Michael Bloomberg marched throughout his 12 years in office. Mayor Rudy Giuliani did so for eight years.

The question of who has a right to wave banners appeared settled in 1995. That’s when US Supreme Court justices voted unanimously, 9-0, that Boston parade organizers, including those who run the nation’s second-largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade after New York’s, have a First Amendment right to invite or exclude any group from events that, like this city’s parade, are considered private.

But now, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh is vowing to skip his city’s parade this coming Sunday unless a deal is reached to include gay military veterans, who’d march under their own banner without wearing clothes or carrying signs that identify them as gay. But last week, testy negotiations between the gay group and parade organizers broke down. The two sides are now trying to come to an agreement.

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is not the place for sexual battles. Gay activists should take the fight someplace else.

Fuhgedd a life, Lillo

Human waste Lillo Brancato, 37, told “Entertainment Tonight,’’ “I wish I could take it back and bring Police Officer Daniel [Enchautegui] back to life.’’ Right.

Brancato, a one-time heroin and crack addict who appeared in the mob flick “A Bronx Tale’’ and on HBO’s “The Sopranos,’’ was arrested in 2005 and convicted in 2008 of attempted burglary. Brancato and partner Steven Armento were trying to break into a Bronx basement apartment to steal prescription drugs when Enchautegui showed up. Armento shot the officer to death and is serving a life term for a murder conviction.

Brancato was sprung from prison on New Year’s Eve.

Now Brancato wants to relaunch his acting career.

This creep is not sorry.

De buyer beware

People of this city are suffering from a wicked case of buyer’s remorse.

Just 39 percent of New York voters thought Mayor de Blasio has done an excellent or good job after two months in office. But a whopping 57 percent believed he’s done a fair or poor job, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC 4 New York/Marist poll.

The mayor is trying to eject successful charter schools from school buildings. His SUV was seen roaring through Queens. And he made a late-night phone call to police brass inquiring about the arrest of a political crony, who was sprung from jail.

Rules are for little people.

Teen is not-so-sweet $ue

What a brat! New Jersey 12th-grader Rachel Canning, 18, is suing her parents for the cost of her Catholic-school tuition and other expenses, claiming that her folks threw her out of their house.

Her parents say the awful teen went to live with another family so she wouldn’t have to obey an 11 p.m. curfew or do household chores.

Last week, a Jersey judge blasted the miscreant for leaving an obscene voicemail for her mother. He refused to force Rachel’s folks to pay $600 a week to their kid. It’s a start.

Get a job, Rachel.

That’s a real fortune cookie

Bronx great-granny Emma Duvoll, 75, won $2 million by playing the lottery using numbers in a fortune cookie from a Greenwich Village noodle shop. Forget the stock market. Chinese leftovers make for a sound investment strategy.