Anti Gay Catholic Activist asked to march on Gay Pride NY (the whole story here)
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| Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, in his office Tuesday, May 12, 1998, in Manhattan.(Credit: AP / Marty Donohue)He wants to march against gays on gay pride. |
Catholic League president Bill Donohue said Thursday that he and his group plan to march with a banner in the city's gay pride parade to promote his anti-gay-marriage views.
LGBT groups said they have no problem with the group's intentions and welcome its presence for the June 29 Manhattan parade.
Donohue, who blasted the mayor, City Council and several beer companies for dropping their support of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Manhattan, said he wanted to challenge the parade's organizers' claim that the celebration is for everyone.
"Why don't they respect us when it comes to the St. Patrick's Day Parade?" he told conservative host Steve Malzberg on his Web show Thursday.
David Studinski, the march director for NYC Pride, which organizes the parade and other events in the week leading up to the march, said he had no problem with the Catholic League participating with the banner.
"His group's presence affirms the need for this year's Pride theme, 'We Have Won When We're One.' Straight is great -- as long as there's no hate," he said in a statement.
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive of the gay rights advocacy group, GLAAD, agreed. She noted that several straight and Catholic organizations have marched alongside LGBT groups in the parade to promote equality. "As a fellow Irish New Yorker, I'm hoping Bill will march with me at NYC Pride," Ellis said in a statement.
She added that she hoped she could march with Donohue in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in the near future.
Donohue said he will continue his call on people to ban the beer companies that pulled their sponsorship from this week’s parade, especially Guinness.
By IVAN PEREIRA. amNewYork
Catholic League figurehead Bill Donohue has made a career out of saying mean things about gay people. So furious was he at the outrage over the St. Patrick's Day Parade's continual banning of gay groups that he thought he'd reverse things a little bit and show the gays how it felt when someone who wasn't implicitly invited wanted to march in one of their parades. He applied to march in New York's LGBT Pride parade, vowing to carry a banner proclaiming, "Straight is Great." He also said he'd bring a wedding cake. "That'll really stick it to them," he probably thought.
Well, little did he know that the gays would enjoy the sticking. Pride officials welcomed Donohue:
"Mr. Donohue and his group are free to participate in the 2014 March. His group's presence affirms the need for this year's Pride theme, 'We Have Won When We're One.' Straight is great – as long as there's no hate," said David Studinski, March Director of NYC Pride.
GLAAD said, "If you don't have something nice to say, we're going to pretend that you do and come march next to us" (in so many words):
GLAAD's President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis welcomed the drastic change for Donohue. "As a fellow Irish New Yorker, I'm hoping Bill will march with me at NYC Pride," Ellis said. "I look forward to the day when I can march openly with Bill in the NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade, and not be turned away because of who I am."
Now that Donohue has been shown that gay groups are way more tolerant than anti-gay groups (imagine!), he must invent a reason to refrain from marching in the parade so that he can continue to be as flat-out rude of a human being as possible. Here is his statement on why he now will not be marching in the Pride parade, come June:
For the past few days I have been engaged in an e-mail conversation with officials from the Heritage of Pride parade, New York's annual gay event; the dialogue has been cordial. I asked to join the parade under a banner that would read, "Straight is Great." The purpose of my request was to see just how far they would go without forcing me to abide by their rules. It didn't take long before they did.Today, I informed Heritage of Pride officials that I objected to their rule requiring me to attend gay training sessions, or what they call "information" sessions. "I don't agree with your rule," I said. They responded by saying that attendance was "mandatory."The St. Patrick's Day parade has mandatory rules, too. It bars groups representing their own cause from marching, which is why pro-life Catholics—not just gays—are barred from participating under their own banner. But only gays complain: they refuse to abide by the rules. Indeed, they went into federal court seeking to force a rule change. They lost. In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that private parades have a First Amendment right to determine their own rules.It is hypocritical for gay activists to complain about having to abide by the mandatory rules of the St. Patrick's Day parade, and then inform me that I cannot march in their parade unless I respect their mandatory rules, rules that I reject.Good luck to the Heritage of Pride participants. I may be watching it from afar, but I sure won't be downing a Guinness afterwards.
Right, because it was always about "rules" and not basic human shittiness. And as for those "gay training sessions," nobody wants Bill Donohue's ass and he should stop flattering himself. Take a number, buddy, it'll be in the millions.
It turns out that saying yes to Donohue was the perfect way of keeping him from prancing his barely veiled hate at an event that exists to counter such sentiment. The gays played this one flawlessly. They woke up like this because they were born like this.
A few words from the publisher if Bill Donohue would have not changed his mind: What I would like to see now is some of the parents and or the families of children that have been abused by priests and the Catholic church by hiding those priests come out and march alone these anti gay catholics. I would also like to see some atheist marching along these haters. A representation of religious pro equality individuals marching with these haters would also should be call for.
I don’t opposed these haters to be marching as long as we make it equal to all, meaning they oppose the discrimination against gays marching at St Patricks next year. I don’t oppose it because I can see why, but still think there is something skewed here. With that thought in mind, are we going to have anti gay skin heads also?
There are certain distinctions that have to be made when we are being inclusive. To allow those that want to humiliate and take away our dignity and human/civil rights from us, those that have succeeded for a couple centuries to put us in the closet and hiding, to now give them room to preach that, like people didn’t who they are and their what their message is. That’s how this posting started but then Donohue was playing chicken.
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