Catholic Leader Asks to March in the Gay Pride Parade and Is Told Gay Classes Are a Prerequisite
March 21, 2014
By Sara Noble
This is an interesting story out today. Bill Donohue and the Catholic League have asked to march with a banner in the city’s gay pride parade on June 29th to promote anti-gay-marriage views. LGBT groups are welcoming them – allegedly.
David Studinski, the march director for the NYC Pride said he has no problems with it: “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 of GLAAD, agreed. She said it won’t be the first time a Catholic leader marched in the parade. “As a fellow Irish New Yorker, I’m hoping Bill will march with me at NYC Pride.”
She said that she hoped to march with Donohue in an upcoming St. Patrick’s Day parade.
That’s a bit disingenuous. The LGBT leaders were speaking to the media, not the truth. The LGBTs didn’t really say he could march. They said they had a rule requiring him and his group to attend gay training or information sessions as a precondition. He said he didn’t agree with the rule and they said attendance in the classes is mandatory.
Obviously, Donohue was making a point as opposed to trying to march in the parade.
On the Catholic League website, Donohue said 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.”
Donohue said he will call on people to ban the beer companies that pulled their sponsorships from this year’s St. Patrick’s parade, especially Guinness. He has a petition posted on the organization’s website.
Donohue is being blasted as a reactionary who is doing this to express his bitterness over the beer companies’ decisions. The left-wing sites are branding him as a gay hater and a bigot.
PolicyMic said it’s born of a “fear of loss of power by a majoritarian identity or community.” This is not the reason. It’s not about majority rule, it’s about a difference of opinion and it’s a strong one.
Donohue is Catholic and he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. He also believes there is a dark side to the LGBT lifestyle. He is being called a bigot because of that view.
http://www.independentsentinel.com/catholic-leader-asks-to-march-in-the-gay-pride-parade-and-is-told-gay-classes-are-a-prerequisite/
