New York City’s Democratic Mayor, Eric Adams, has decided that Staten Island needs to have two St. Patrick’s Day parades. Holding the actual parade on the nonsensical day of March 2nd, the second and LGBTQ-based parade will be held on March 17th. Banned from the NYC parade until 2014 as their message is counterintuitive to the Catholic heritage of the day, since then the Staten Island organizers have been at odds with them, with debates and boycotts on both sides.
To Adams, the message to solve the problem is to give the LGBTQ groups the traditional holiday for their parade, as well as his attendance as he shuns the hold day’s parade. His office has announced the Staten Island Business Outreach Center will be in charge of this “all-inclusive” day.
Founder of the true St Patrick’s Day parade, Larry Johnson, told the Irish Voice back in 2018 that their presence was simply not needed. “Our parade is for Irish heritage and culture. It is not a political or sexual identification parade…Here’s the deal: it’s a nonsexual identification parade, and that’s that. No, they are not marching. Don’t try to keep asking a million friggin’ questions, OK?”
For the Catholics, the message has been that St Patrick drove the “snakes” out of Ireland. In this instance, “snakes” aren’t the slithery serpents we think of here in the US. Rather it is a metaphor for the non-believers, the occultists, and the sinners of Ireland. While the nation does not have the actual reptiles slithering around the Emerald Isle, the memo has stuck with their people. The holiday is a major one in the US, Canada, and Australia, with Ireland keeping the holiday more solemn until about 1990.
Including the LGTBQ in St Patrick’s Day makes no sense and is inviting the serpants back to the island.
