The board of directors of New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade voted to allow a second gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) group in next year's march.
The Lavender & Green Alliance, a New York City-based group of gay Irish Americans, will join Out@NBC, which represents LGBT employees at NBCUniversal and participated in this year's parade.
Board Chair John Lahey said the inclusion marks the parade's "renewed commitment to Irish values and traditions, and the Irish role in the 21st Century."
Lahey added, "We are working with the government of Ireland in this anniversary year to teach our young people the lessons of sacrifice and heroism, of love and tolerance, embodied in the Irish spirit."
News of the vote, conducted Monday evening, did not sit well with Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who this year, for the first time, boycotted the parade.
"This has become a quasi-gay parade," Donohue told Newsmax on Tuesday. "We have a gay pride parade, fine, but this is about honoring St. Patrick."
Donohue severed his group's 20-year-old association with the parade after organizers took the unprecedented step of allowing the NBC group to march under its own banner.
The decision roiled Donohue in light of the parade committee's later denying his request for an anti-abortion group to march with its own signs.
The parade, which was established in 1762 and proceeds up Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and past St. Patrick's Cathedral every March 17th, had banned symbols thought to politicize the event.
Donohue, author of
"The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, Happiness, and Heaven Await the Faithful," published by Image — told Newsmax he will never participate in the parade again.
"I'm finished for all time. I saw this coming … Once they stiffed me, I just quit," he said.
Brendan Fay, founder and chair of the Lavender & Green Alliance, said his group is ecstatic over the invitation.
"We celebrate the welcome! St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2016, will be a great day for hospitality and inclusion," Fay said. "The decision to invite an Irish gay organization, The Lavender & Green Alliance/ Muintir Aerach na hEireann … sends a positive message across the Irish Cultural landscape.
"As LGBT Irish Americans we thank John Lahey and the members of the Board for this historic decision which reflects the feelings of most Irish and Irish Americans.
"With the decision we cross a historic threshold and our members will proudly march up Fifth Avenue with our banner."
Out@NBC, the gay group at NBCUniversal — the parent of WNBC, which broadcasts the parade — is one of the oldest such organizations in corporate America, dating to 1986.
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