"Gay activists tout victory at NYC St. Patrick’s Parade, pro-life groups remain shut out"

lifesitenews.com

The 255th annual parade meant to celebrate the Feast of St. Patrick in New York City is instead being touted as a victory for the homosexual movement.

"I never thought I'd see the day when I could march up Fifth Avenue in the St. Patrick's Day Parade with my husband," said Brendan Fay, chairman of the Lavender and Green Alliance, the second homosexual activist group allowed to march in the NYC Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. "When we started in 1991, after getting arrested so many times for protesting the parade, wow, what a moment this is."

The Lavender and Green group follows OUT@NBCUniversal, a pro-homosexual group for NBC employees that was allowed to march in the 2015 parade after decades of pressure from homosexual activists demanding to be allowed to march with an identifying banner, and organizers disposing of the parade’s long-standing policy to maintain focus on Irish heritage.

“We Won!” was the headline of the Irish Queers press release last fall after the Lavender and Green group was approved, with a spokesperson calling the move “a total victory.”

The New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade website states the parade is held “in honor of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland and of the Archdiocese of New York.”...

The parade committee never returned Personhood Education New York founder Dawn Eskew’s phone calls or emails inquiring into how her pro-life group could apply to march in this year’s parade, Eskew told the National Catholic Register.

“What bothers me is that they never responded,” she said.

“This will be the most inclusive parade in the 255-year history of the parade,” parade chair John Lahey said before this year’s event, according to an NBC New York report. “And really I think it will be the most unifying parade in the past 25 years.”

Lahey, president of Quinnipiac University, is the one who publicly backtracked on the parade committee promise to allow a pro-life group last year, telling the media, “That won’t be happening.”...

“They’re claiming a complete victory for tolerance,” she said, “but no, they are intolerant to Catholics who believe that life is sacred at the moment of conception.”