OPINION:
New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day paraders stepped off Monday without the participation of liberal Mayor Bill de Blasio, and few noticed or cared.
In demonstrating his solidarity with militant homosexual groups who were barred from waving their rainbow banners, and not the traditional green ones, Hizzoner became the first mayor in decades not to march in an annual tradition older than the city itself.
Mr. de Blasio was in a distinct minority, as green-clad spectators turned out Monday by the million to watch kilted bagpipers, Irish dancers and marching bands march down Fifth Avenue in what is meant to be a celebration without politics.
New York’s parade has always been an event that no politician dared shun, but because he won’t have to make an accounting to voters again until 2017, Mr. de Blasio figured he could afford to break tradition.
The mayor stood instead with his homosexual allies who attempted to convert the parade into a political occasion. Instead of a festive celebration where “everyone is Irish for a day,” they wanted to make it “everyone is gay for a day.”
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, a fellow Democrat, shunned his city’s St. Pat’s Parade, too.
This was nothing about actual tolerance. Homosexuals eager to advertise their persuasion could have marched without drawing attention to their sexuality. They have their own parades, often with displays of the lewd and lascivious.
The gay lobby forced the brewers of Guinness, Heineken and Sam Adams beers to withdraw their sponsorship of the New York and Boston parades to protest the no-politics rule.
Ireland’s head of government, Enda Kenny, who on Sunday became the first Irish prime minister to attend Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, cut to the chase in refusing to bow to pressure to shun the New York parade.
“The St. Patrick’s Day parade [in New York City] is a parade about our Irishness and not about sexuality,” he said before departing Dublin for his six-day trip to the U.S., “and I would be happy to participate in it.” We agree. Erin go bragh and slainte.
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