AGLBICAL

ST. PATRICK'S DAY
Kiss Me, I'm Irish

Saint Patrick's Day has come to be associated with everything Irish: anything green and gold, shamrocks and luck. Most importantly, to those who celebrate its intended meaning, St. Patrick's Day is a traditional day for spiritual renewal and offering prayers for missionaries worldwide.

So, why is it celebrated on March 17th? One theory is that that is the day that St. Patrick died. Since the holiday began in Ireland, it is believed that as the Irish spread out around the world, they took with them their history and celebrations. The biggest observance of all is, of course, in Ireland. With the exception of restaurants and pubs, almost all businesses close on March 17th. Being a religious holiday as well, many Irish attend mass, where March 17th is the traditional day for offering prayers for missionaries worldwide before the serious celebrating begins.

In American cities with a large Irish population, St. Patrick's Day is a very big deal. Big cities and small towns alike celebrate with parades, "wearing of the green," music and songs, Irish food and drink, and activities for kids such as crafts, coloring and games. Some communities even go so far as to dye rivers or streams green!

LAVENDER & GREEN
Organization for Irish GLBT

The Lavender & Green Alliance, also known as Muintir Aerach na hEireann, is a non-profit organization of Irish lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people including immigrants, activists, artists and professionals coming together to create an environment where our lives are shared and celebrated.

They offer cultural programs that include researching and recording the lives and stories of LGBT persons within NY’s Irish communities. They have classes in Irish language and dance; presentations on heroes in Irish LGBT history; and active involvement in community parades in Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. They celebrate festivals such as the Samhain (Halloween) and Nollaig (Christmas) with other ethnic and cultural groups.

Oiche Aerach, Irish for "Gay Night", has become their annual St. Patrick's celebration. What began as an antidote to the exclusion of lesbians and gays from the Hibernian-run Manhattan has grown each year. Every year over two hundred of our family and friends join in celebrating Irish lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender life.

Of particular significance every year is their participation in New York City's inclusive St. Patrick's Parade. An enormous cause for celebration, the St. Patrick's parade is held every first Sunday in March in the borough of Queens.

They meet every 2nd Sunday from 4-6:00pm at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, 208 West 13th Street (between 7th and 8th Ave.) in Manhattan.

IRISH PRIDE... GLBT PRIDE
Fighting for the right to be Irish

Anyone can be Irish on St. Patrick's Day. That is, anyone who is heterosexual. Since 1991, Irish gay organizations like the Lavender and Green Alliance have been forbidden to march behind their banner in Manhattan's St. Patrick's Day Parade. This year, the Alliance finally received an invitation to march in the Bronx St. Patrick's Day parade. It appeared that gay Irish-Americans would finally be allowed to celebrate their heritage openly, alongside groups like the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), an Irish social organization which had vehemently excluded them in the past.

Yet once again, the Alliance was banned from marching. The Bronx invitation was abruptly revoked just a few days before the parade because the AOH and other church groups threatened to pull out if the Alliance marched. Because it had received an invitation, the Alliance showed up anyway, and several of its marchers, including founder Brendan Fay, New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn, and New York State Senator Thomas K. Duane, were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. "We're celebrating a Catholic holy day...people who march should be in line with what we're celebrating—Irish pride and Irish Catholic pride," said Karin O'Connor, an organizer of the Bronx parade.

But St. Patrick's Day is not just a religious holiday. It is a celebration of Irish culture and nationalism. Catholic groups have no more right to hijack the parade for their own purposes than do the hundreds of drunken revelers swigging beer up and down Fifth Avenue. St. Patrick's Day is no more a Catholic pride day than it is a Guinness appreciation day. Why aren't the Catholic groups who are invoking the mantra of "family values" as concerned about the rowdy drunks as they are about the peaceful gay marchers?

The parade itself is hardly a Catholic event. Many non-Catholics march in the St. Patrick's Day parade. Irish Protestants march in the parade. The New York City police force marches. The bands in the parade play music that is not religious music; it's secular Irish music. And the Irish dancing featured in the parade certainly has nothing to do with the Church. So why shouldn't there also be an Irish gay group in the parade?

Some Catholics argue that Irish gays are allowed to march in the parade—they simply have to march as individuals rather than under a group banner. A parade is no place to air the "dirty laundry" of gay-rights political statements, they say. Why can't Irish gays just be Irish like everyone else for a day?

In 1992, members of the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization did march in the parade as individuals without a banner. In a show of support, New York City Mayor David Dinkins chose to march in the gay contingent, rather than in the mayor's traditional position at the head of the parade. For nearly 40 blocks he was harassed, taunted, and, at one point, showered with beer.

It's no wonder homosexuals feel unable to blend into a culture that displays this kind of open prejudice. It's especially ironic that some Irish Catholics, members of a group that itself faced prejudice upon arrival in this country, should now snipe at another minority group that stands a few rungs below them on the ladder of social acceptance.

In one of his St. Patrick's Day sermons, Cardinal John O'Connor urged Irish Catholics to avoid prejudice against others. "Our forefathers, our foremothers, came from some other country.... It is imperative that Irish, above all, remember their roots," he preached. But O'Connor has also repeatedly defended the decision to exclude gay groups from the parade. He has declared that political correctness is not worth "one comma in the Apostles' Creed." O'Connor may be right about the punctuation, but he's wrong about the parade. March 17th is a day to celebrate Irish heritage and a chance for the Irish to remember their roots by extending a welcome to their gay and lesbian kin. St. Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland; it's time to banish hypocrisy from his parade.

REMEMBERING FATHER MYCHAL JUDGE
Breaking-Ground for Gays in Catholic Church

Father Mychal Judge, New York Fire Department chaplain was killed in the line of duty on September 11, 2001.

In 2002, the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Chicago honored Father Mychal Judge as the parade's Grand Marshal.

He was very proud of his Irish heritage. It's a wonderful thing that Mychal Judge was honored in the Chicago parade, because maybe one day people will say, he was also gay, and look at all the good that he did. So, it's great that he was honored. Somewhere, the truth about his life will surface.

Mychal Judge was someone everyone admired and was drawn to, someone who uplifted everyone in all the many different worlds and communities in which he moved: the Franciscan community, the Catholic community, New York City's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, people with AIDS, immigrants... He was constantly crossing boundaries. After he died, we all found about each other.

There had been a question about whether gay groups were allowed to march in the Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade? There's a little Irish irony here. You may find the Chicago parade does not welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. But here they now have a parade, with the President present, honoring an Irish gay man. To me, this is an irony.

Another irony is that there're now people sporting green carnations on St. Patrick's Day. The idea of the green carnation was created in 1892 by another Irish gay man, Oscar Wilde, at the opening night of "Lady Windermere's Fan." It symbolized art and nature. The green carnation became a symbol in the London underground gay community of the 1890's, the way the rainbow flag is today. There was even a novel that castigated Wilde and his life, entitled "The Green Carnation."

The Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade does not acknowledge in its official website that Father Judge was gay or that he ministered to the lgbt community. It's part of the Church's denial regarding gay people in the Church — the denial to recognize and affirm the contribution of lesbian and gay people in the Church, and also as lay people. There are barriers of shame and discrimination. Lesbian and gay people are among the most talented people in the Catholic community — lay people, doctors, teachers, as well as Bishops.

Mychal Judge's inclusion in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Chicago shows that, ultimately, denial fails. All the attempts to deny, suppress lesbian and gay people won't work.

In his own life, Mychal Judge carried the pain and the tension of being a contemporary gay man in the Church, where they continue to destroy with words like "intrinsic evil," and the recent declaration of the Vatican representative [the Pope's spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who blamed gay priests for sexual abuse charges now rocking the Catholic Church.

Mychal Judge struggled with the same impulse of denial, and rather than succumb to it, he sought to live each day in honesty. He struggled with it, lived through it, and towards the end of his life, he celebrated and acknowledged the gift of New York City's lesbian and gay community in his life, a community that was an important part of his life — like the Franciscan community and the Catholic church.

He came out as a gay man insofar as he felt it would help. One could say he was selectively out. He was open. It was about being himself. He encouraged others to be themselves, as well. Therefore, in any writing or tribute to him, this should be acknowledged.

What needs to be done to honor Father Judge's legacy? We need to acknowledge that Mychal Judge was a gay man. Acknowledge the intrinsic goodness of every single human being, including those who, like himself are gay or lesbian. Lesbian and gay people are discriminated against at the border, in parades, in parishes, and it's time to honor and celebrate this people.

(Brendan Fay remembers his friend and mentor, Father Mychal Judge. Fay is co-chair of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Woodside, Queens, a New York City neighborhood with a strong, new Irish immigrant presence. He is also one of the moving forces behind the Lavender Green Alliance, an organization of Irish lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.)

NYC ST. PATRICK'S DAY PARADE
No Irish Queers Need Apply

The St. Patrick's Day Parade, the biggest and most public annual political networking event in town, bans lesbians and gays from openly marching in it. In a city of immigrants, being banned from your own people's parade because you're gay means being stripped of your nationality, cast out of your family, deprived of half your soul. It is a particularly cruel form of hatred. In the case of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, it has practical consequences, as well: you're excluded from the network of very tangible, worldly, political and economic influence that the parade represents and celebrates. You're disinherited materially, as well as spiritually.

For the past eleven years, the gay community has rallied behind the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) in its battle against the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the parade organizers, whose main political patron is the powerful New York City Catholic Archdiocese. Hundreds of queers have been arrested in annual civil disobedience actions, lawsuits have been filed, and fear of losing the gay vote has forced top Democratic politicians to shun the parade for years.

(TheGully.Com)

IRISH PRIDE... GLBT PRIDE Fighting for the right to be Irish

IRISH PRIDE... GLBT PRIDE
Fighting for the right to be Irish