Mayor de Blasio will be the first mayor in two decades to skip the St. Patrick’s Day parade down Fifth Ave., but he joined the gay-friendly St. Pat’s For All parade in Queens Sunday.
“We are here to honor the extraordinary Irish heritage of this city,” he said at the Skillman Ave. parade. “We want to do it in a way that respects all people and all communities.
“We are here to honor the extraordinary Irish heritage of this city,” he said at the Skillman Ave. parade. “We want to do it in a way that respects all people and all communities.
This is exactly the way I think we should celebrate New York City – in an inclusive way,” he said.
The Sunnyside parade was launched 15 years ago in response to the refusal by Manhattan parade organizers to allow groups publicly identifying themselves as gay from marching.
This year, all four city wide office holders – also including City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Controller Scott Stringer, and Public Advocate Letitia James – opted to march in the Queens parade and skip the Manhattan one.
Grand marshall Terry McGovern, a Columbia professor, said the controversy was not merely symbolic. “This is not really just a dispute about a small benign matter. Discrimination is never a small matter. It institutionalizes hatred,” she said.
Mayor Bloomberg typically marched in both the traditional parade and St. Pat’s For All.
But de Blasio said he was fine with Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s decision to march in the Fifth Ave. parade.
“I absolutely respect his decision. I’ve said this is something where we have to respect everyone’s individuality and their right to make their own decision,” he said.
De Blasio irked some Rockaway residents by not showing up for that neighborhood’s St. Patrick’s Day parade Saturday.
Asked about the decision, he initially said, “my approach has been to embrace parades that are inclusive, and that’s the standard we’re going to hold” – although he marched in the parade last year as a candidate and in previous years, and it has not been subject to controversy over the role of gay groups.
A spokesman later clarified that he was actually absent from the Rockaway parade for scheduling reasons. He skipped Sunday’s Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day parade because of its ban on displays of gay identity, though he has marched in that parade before.
IMAGE: JAMES KEIVOM/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
