Tuesday 17th - Where to go on Paddy's Night ?

[jinks]

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Well, it was that day again when the Irish miss work and spend all day drinking.
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Tuesday :drunken:

Why would anyone gay want to go to a St Paddies day party?


Gays again sidelined at NYC St. PattyтАЩs Day Parade
By 365gay Newscenter Staff
03.17.2009 3:39pm EDT

(New York City) There was no wearinтАЩ of the pink once again in this yearтАЩs St PatrickтАЩs Day Parade down Fifth Avenue. For 18 years the Ancient Order of Hibernians which organizes the parade has barred Irish gay groups from marching.


At 57th Street, a small group of Irish American gays and lesbians staged a quiet protest. But among the hundreds of thousands who lined the streets they were virtually invisible.


The cityтАЩs highest ranking gay politician, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, boycotted the parade again this year.

Quinn was at the White House where President Barack Obama welcomed the Prime Minister of Ireland.

Last year, Quinn missed the parade to attend David PatersonтАЩs swearing in as the new governor. The year before she was in Ireland where gays marched openly in the parade in Dublin.

Before leaving for Washington, Quinn said she hoped to talk with the President about LGBT issues.

As she did before last yearтАЩs parade, Quinn attempted to set up a meeting between the Hibernians and gay representatives and again this year the conservative Catholic menтАЩs group ignored the invitation.

The Hibernians claim the parade is a private, religious procession in order to to justify keeping LGBT groups out.

In the early 1990s, the parade committee used the argument to defeat a discrimination claim brought by the NYC Human Rights Commission.

A federal judge ruled that the organization could bar the gay group on the grounds of religious freedom.

The New York parade is the nationтАЩs largest St. PatrickтАЩs Day Parade, but gays are also rejected at marches in other cities, including Boston.

[krobbie]

ArNolD. You are right ... why would anyone bother? It is 2009 not 1960. I don't quite get the St Patrick's Day parade itself being particularly about religion. It looks more like it is about fun and luck and all things green and gold.

I guess just the name is enough to remember the old patron saint and apostle of Ireland who is credited for driving the snakes out of Ireland. Snakes? That old trick. I think it a little cold for there ever to have been snakes there.