How ban on gay groups in New York parade threatens Ireland's reputation

Bagpipers marching past St Patrick's Cathedral during the annual St Patrick's Day parade in New York. The city mayor is boycotting this year’s parade because of the ban on LGBT groups’ participation. Ed Bailey/AP

Katherine Zappone

March 14 2014 12:00 AM

IT SADDENS me to see the New York St Patrick's Day rooted in controversy because I have happy memories of it.

In the early 1980s, I worked as a teacher in the Marymount School of New York on 84th and 5th Avenue.

One of the many benefits of working in this great institution was that it gave me a prime vantage point to watch the parade.

Ireland and the United States were both very different places in the 1980s.

I moved permanently to Ireland in 1983. At this point in time, it was still illegal to be homosexual in Ireland.

It took a further decade of hard campaigning and courageous work by many people in the Irish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community before homosexuality was decriminalised in 1993.

In the two decades since decriminalisation, there have been huge advances in delivering equality and building respect for diversity.

Today, thankfully, attitudes towards the gay community in Ireland are among the most liberal in the western world.

The progressive and inclusive attitude of Irish people in 2014 on LGBT issues stands in very stark contrast to the effective and unacceptable ban the New York parade is placing on gay people.

Those insisting upon this regressive ban should reflect on the damage it does to Ireland's international reputation.

I agree with the decision of the Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, and our own Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, for refusing to march in the parade because of its non-inclusive nature.

I am disappointed that the Taoiseach Enda Kenny has accepted an invitation to march.

The Taoiseach has said he will participate because "the parade is about our Irishness and not about our sexuality". However, this statement fails to take account of the fact that an individual's sexual identity is as important to a person's sense of self-definition as is their national identity.

The controversy regarding the New York parade is regrettable because it will undoubtedly impact on people's perceptions of Ireland.

We need to guard against a false impression being created that because the major Irish event in New York effectively prohibits the participation of gay people, that Irish or Irish-American people are hostile to a progressive stance on LGBT issues.

Hopefully, the intransigent and regrettable position of those organising the New York parade will not overshadow the good work of so many people of Irish heritage right across the United States.

In this regard, New York could learn a lot from Seattle.

Seattle's inclusive St Patrick's Day Parade will fully embrace Irish diversity. Its Grand Marshall will be a proud, married, Irish lesbian. I know this because I am that Grand Marshall.

KATHERINE ZAPPONE IS A TAOISEACH'S NOMINEE TO SEANAD EIREANN. SHE IS THE FIRST OPENLY LESBIAN MEMBER OF THE OIREACHTAS AND THE FIRST IN A SAME-SEX MARRIAGE.

How ban on gay groups in New York parade threatens Ireland's reputation

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