Count the New York City Council “out” — of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, that is.
This week, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, announced the council will not have an “official presence” at next month’s annual parade up Fifth Avenue.
But, she added, “individual council members can still be able to participate if they wish.” In so deciding, the speaker follows the mayor’s lead, who has declined to march himself but refused to ban uniformed city workers from marching.
New York’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade ranks among the nation’s oldest, dating back to 1762. It’s privately run, and in recent years has come under attack because it has a policy that precludes participants from marching under banners that identify themselves as gay. In 1995, the Supreme Court upheld the parade’s First Amendment right to do so.
Mark-Viverito explains her opposition this way: “The St. Patrick’s Parade should be a time when all New Yorkers can come together and march openly as who they are — but right now that is not the case for the LGBT community.”
How ironic that in a city that prides itself on diversity, one parade is singled out because it wishes to celebrate its individual values in its own way, just as the Gay Pride Parade in June does.
The organizers of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade say gays are free to march — just not with banners or signs identifying them as gay, because that’s inimical to the message they wish to send on a day commemorating an Irish saint.
Mark-Viverito likewise says council members are free to march — just so long as there is no council banner or Sergeant-at-Arms present, on the grounds this would be inimical to the message the council wants to send.
We congratulate our progressive speaker for showing just how reasonable the St. Patrick’s Day Parade organizers are by adopting the same approach they’ve taken.