documents
NYPD, FDNY & electeds use St. Patrick's parade to express anti-gay bias
RISH QUEERS: STATEMENT FROM ST. PATRICK'S PARADE PROTEST
March 17, 2007
Contact: (917) 517-3627
For the 16th year, Irish Queers are on Fifth Avenue protesting the attempts of religious-right bigots to write us out of the Irish community. As we confront the parade year after year, we have seen it become increasingly political, and decreasingly Irish.
While our fight began in New York's Irish and church institutions, we have learned that the City, the NYPD and the courts are all willing to trample the delicate, diverse fabric of the Irish community. So our struggle is not just with the parade organizers, but with the NYPD, the FDNY and other public servants who use the parade to express sentiments of hate and superiority that are disallowed anywhere else. And we struggle against messages of religious and military war-mongering in support of America's conquests.
After 9/11, police and firefighters became the focus of the parade -- celebrated and cheered even as they screamed "die, faggots!" at Irish LGBT people on the sidelines. While Irish immigrants of conscience were working tomake links with Arab andMuslim immigrants who were coming under attack citywide, our parade was filled with US military contingents | bringing guns to our streets, hyping the war.
This year, the parade is filled with politics too. While we stand here -- watching tens of thousands of NYPD officers march in a parade with an explicit message of hate -- African-American communities and other New Yorkers are gathering in Times Square to hold the NYPD to account for the murder of Sean Bell. Like us, they are standing up to fight the NYPD's willful discrimination, its indifference to communities, its strong-arming of our streets, and its failure to take responsibility for creating a culture of violence. Meanwhile, back at the St. Patrickfs parade, our elected officials are falling over themselves to insist on firefighter's "rightful place" near the head of this bigoted display.
Our protest this year is dedicated to the struggles of immigrants, of queers, of neighborhoods and communities against the violence of bigots. Whether we come under attack from the church, the state or our own public servants, we will stand together to resist.
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Irish Queers, which evolved out of the Irish Lesbian & Gay Organization, is active on immigrant justice, Northern Ireland self-determination, anti-racism and other social justice issues.
16 Years of discrimination, but Irish Queers fight on
Protest at NYC St. Patrick's Parade as Irish LGBT people refuse to disappear
March 15, 2007
Contact: (917) 517-3627
Challenges to the exclusion of LGBT people from the NYC St. Patrick's parade this year will come from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Once again, Irish Queers will assemble at W. 58th Street & Fifth Ave. at 10:30am to protest the exclusion of Irish & Irish American LGBT people from the parade. At the same time, in Ireland, LGBT groups will call for an end to the homophobia of the New York parade. Council Speaker Quinn, who has frequently protested with Irish Queers at the New York parade, will join the Dublin groups.
"Because of the parade, St. Patrick's Day in New York has become a call to action against bigotry. In this time of war and anti-immigrant backlash, it's urgent that we raise our voices," said JohnFrancis Mulligan, an organizer with Irish Queers. "So its especially scandalous that Mayor Bloomberg marches each year. It's scandalous that uniformed police and firefighters march in a blatantly anti-gay event."
"This is about more than a parade | it's about whole communities," said Tierney Gleason of Irish Queers. "When parade organizers voice hatred toward Irish and Irish-American LGBT people, they foster intolerance and ultimately violence against LGBT people in immigrant communities."
"As Irish Queers, we persist in living our Irishness and Queerness simultaneously. We won't let a bunch of religious-right businessmen tell us we're not Irish just because we don't fit their agenda," Gleason continued.
The New York St. Patrick's Day Parade has become synonymous with bigotry | in spite of the fact that the first St. Patrick's Day parade in New York was organized to combat anti-Irish prejudice; and the AOH was originally formed to fight for Irish workers' rights in anti-immigrant times.
The New York City parade organizers have actively excluded Irish LGBT people for 16 years. They have also excluded other groups whose Irish identity they deemed "unsuitable," including the families of Irish hunger strikers and political prisoners.
In Ireland, where news of Quinn's visit has rekindled discussion of New York's parade issue, Irish groups are both bemused and horrified by the ongoing discrimination in the US-Irish community. Irish Queers has been working with Ireland's Gay & Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) to support Speaker Quinn's visit to Ireland. Through GLEN's efforts, every political party in Ireland has signed on in support of gay rights.
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Irish Queers, which evolved out of the Irish Lesbian & Gay Organization, is active on immigrant justice, Northern Ireland self-determination, anti-racism and other social justice issues.
IQ 2006 St. Patrick's Day press statement
Date: March 17, 2006
Contact: JF Mulligan (914) 489-9204 or (917) 517-3627
www.irishqueers.org
New York Irish Queers, along with Irish and Irish-American New Yorkers of conscience, will once again assemble on Fifth Avenue to protest the exclusion of Irish and Irish American LGBT people from marching in the New York St. Patrick's Day parade with our own banner.
Although the parade has been billed as a celebration of Irish culture for most of its 100+ year history, over the last decade the New York Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Catholic Archdiocese have redefined it a private, religious event where many Irish people are not welcome.
At St. Patrick's Day parades in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast today -- and around the world -- Irish LGBT people will be marching with their communities. Many churches and cultural groups will share the streets. But in New York, right-wing religious hate has long chilled the celebration.
Worse, although parade organizers have explicitly said that they redefined the parade as a "religious procession" as an end-run around NYCs anti-discrimination laws, Mayor Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton and several other prominent elected officials and candidates still march -- alongside many thousands of uniformed police and firefighters representing City support for the discriminatory parade.
This week John T. Dunleavy, Chairman of the New York City Saint Patrick's Day Parade, told the Irish Voice that if gays were allowed to march, "That would take away from the whole spirit of the parade," and in a statement to the Irish Times newspaper, compared Irish Queers to the KKK. But Irish Queers member Jim McDonagh said, "If we marched it certainly would change the spirit of the parade. As things stand, the spirit of the parade is rooted in bigotry, homophobia and militarism."
Like queers in other NYC immigrant populations -- Indian, Pakistani, Polish, Puerto Rican and others -- Irish Queers have been forced to struggle for respect not only with our own community, but with the NYPD, courts and city officials who shore up the forces of anti-gay discrimination. Many others have stood with us for justice, boycotted the parade or simply stayed away. But although active support from politicians, non-Irish LGBT folk and Irish American groups may rise and subside, Irish Queers -- who live each day with the spectre of religious-inspired bigotry in our home spaces -- continue to demand a respectful place in the important, symbolic St. Patrick's Day parade.
Irish Queers meet year-round as members of both Irish and queer communities. IQ, which evolved out of the Irish Lesbian & Gay Organization, is active on immigrant justice, Northern Ireland self-determination, anti-racism and other issues.
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Irish Queers statement on homophobia and immigrant identity
March 15, 2004
As the city and the country are polarized by the virulent homophobia of the religious right, Irish Queers again ask the Mayor of New York City: do you support the right of queer people to participate fully in our communities? Or do you support the forces of repression and hate, which try to relegate us to the shadows?
The NYC St. Patrick's Day parade is touted by its organizers as a "triumph of traditional Catholic values over homosexuality." It is no longer a parade of Irish culture and identity. It is a parade of hate.
Yet thousands of police officers and firefighters march in the parade in uniform, and are compensated for their time. The mayor marches in the parade, bringing the stamp of city approval to bigotry. And the City provides over one million dollars in insurance normally billed to parade organizers. On whose behalf does the city fund this explicitly anti-gay display of hate?
The attacks on queers of all stripes are acutely felt in immigrant communities; and the mayor and the city have a critical role to play in opposing both anti-gay and anti-immigrant hatred. Irish Queers makes this demand of the city: stand up for the rights of New Yorkers, and stand up against hate.
Irish Queers, in protest against the city and the AOH's attempt to erase us, will bring ourselves, and our Irish culture, to the St. Patrick's parade being used as a weapon against us. We do so in solidarity with immigrant communities throughout the city who are silenced, intimidated and erased for their "difference." The Mayor should join us.
Date: March 8, 2004
Contact: Emmaia Gelman (917) 517-3627
IRISH QUEERS UNVEIL PLAN TO FOIST IRISH CULTURE ONTO NYC ST. PAT?S PARADE
In challenge to AOH's "Irishless" Fifth Ave. parade, IQ wields Irish culture as weapon against hate
New York ? Irish Queers will protest the right-wing religious stranglehold on the NYC St. Patrick?s Day parade that prevents Irish queers, Irish republicans, and any other Irish people whose Irish identity doesn?t appeal to the AOH, from marching. The protest will take place alongside the Fifth Avenue St. Patrick?s Day parade ? the parade billed as ?a triumph of traditional Catholic values over homosexuality?; which is funded by Ford Motor Company and the City of New York.
?While we understand that Mayor Bloomberg wants to show support for homophobic corporations, we also think it?s important that he support the Irish community on St. Patrick?s Day,? said Brigid of Irish Queers, who is not ?out? in her Brooklyn community for fear of homophobic backlash. ?We protest the privileging of homophobia over Irish culture, and the funding of homophobia with City money.?
In direct opposition to the AOH?s claim that Irish culture is made up entirely of a series of heterosexual military bands, heterosexual Holy Name Societies and heterosexual County Organizations, Irish Queers will protest alongside the parade with Irish dramatic readings, the singing of Irish songs and visuals by Irish artists.
Presenters include Malachy McCourt, reading James Joyce?s apropos description of hell; the United 32s playing trad tunes; artists Conor McGrady and Kevin Noble, whose art deals with repression and colonialism in the north of Ireland; and other offerings by Irish queers and rebels. The protest will be held at 58th Street and Fifth Avenue.
The protest is expected to inspire a mixture of awe and revelation in parade-goers, who will immediately repent their lock-step bigotry, and will then be welcome to join the protest and reap enjoyment of actual Irish culture.
?We?re all about inclusion,? said J.F. Mulligan of Irish Queers. ?If people want to trade in their ?Roman Catholicism go bragh? badges and come into the loving arms of the larger Irish community on St. Patrick?s Day, Irish Queers are here to welcome them.?
Messages of support are expected from Irish gay groups who will themselves have just finished marching in St. Patrick?s day parades in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast; as well as Irish groups fighting the imposition of US military culture on Ireland at Shannon Airport and other supporters in Ireland who are frankly embarrassed by the American AOH?s annual display of provincial small-mindedness.
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(mayor bloomberg's participation in 2003 parade: missing...)
Date: February 27, 2003
Contact: J.F. Mulligan (212) 289-1101
Irish Queers: Statement on the current repression of civil rights and the St. Patrick's parade
As New York City reels under repressive new policies, as peaceful demonstrators are attacked by police on horseback, as immigrants are detained, as intelligence on organizers is gathered, as our government whips us into fears and frenzies about "orange alerts", it is increasingly clear that our civil rights battles over the last decades ? as Irish Queers, Irish Republicans, immigrants, AIDS activists and others ? have been extremely important. Through these struggles, in which we assert our right to exist, to share in public resources and to decide for ourselves how to form our communities, we learn and teach the lessons of resistance.
On February 25th, 2003, at Chicago O?Hare airport, the INS denied entry to Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, one of Irelands strongest and bravest leaders in the demand for civil rights and human rights. Agents told her that, although they had nothing on file against her, they had received a State Department fax claiming that she posed a "potential or real threat" to U.S. security. As news of her case spread around the world, Irish activists heard from other immigrant communities that, especially recently, civil rights leaders from their communities have also been denied entry to the United States.
Irish Queers recognizes the parallel between these despotic 1950s-style blacklist tactics, and the attempts by the "old guard" of the Irish American community ? many of whom arrived here in the 1950s as unpopular immigrants themselves ? to lock the door on those who pose a threat to their grip on power. The Irish community has long been characterized by opposing strains of rebel resistance and slavish conformity. Choose your side. The St. Patrick?s Day parade is a symbolic battle ground for those of us who refuse to be disappeared.
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Date: March 17, 2003
Contact: Emmaia Gelman (917) 517-3627
IRISH QUEERS BLOCK NYC?S ANTI-GAY ST. PAT?S PARADE
Four activists were arrested at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 56th Street today, blocking the course of the St. Patrick?s Day parade. They were protesting the parade organizers? exclusion of Irish queers from the parade. A group of a dozen Irish queer protesters erected a seventeen foot tripod at the intersection and one protester was slung from the peak, blocking the intersection. Police tipped over the tripod, and took four of the protesters into custody. One of the protesters was kicked and punched by police.
"Irish queers are part of the Irish community. St. Patrick?s Day is our holiday, " said J. F. Mulligan of Irish Queers. "The attempt by the parade organizers ? a right-wing fraternity of businessmen -- to pretend Irish Queers don?t exist by squeezing us out of the parade is pathetic."
"As Irish Americans, we demand to take our place in Irish community celebration. But as New Yorkers, we?re outraged that the mayor supports this overt, intentional display of bigotry, both with city funds and with his presence," said Emmaia Gelman of Irish Queers. "NYC law prohibits anti-gay discrimination because discrimination is wrong. The mayor?s support for this parade flies in the face of the law."
"Homophobia is not just an idea, or even a politics --- it?s a pathology,: said Irish Queers? Pat Pearse. "Homophobia, and the idea that it?s okay to discriminate against quers, causes hundreds of murders and suicides every year in this country. It?s not okay for the Irish community to turn a blind eye to homophobia, and it?s not okay for the city to fund it."
Activists at the protest held signs reading: "We resist injustice today in honor of Bernadette Devlina dn Rachel Cory." Bernadette Devlin is a long-time non-violent civil rights activist from the North of Ireland, recently denied entry to the US as a "potential or real threat to US security." Rachel Cory is the American human rights activist kiolled yesterday by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, as she engaged in peaceful protest against the abuse of Palestinians? rights.
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Date: March 18, 2003
Contact: Emmaia Gelman (917) 517-3627
New York ? The last of four activists arrested while blocking the route of the NYC St. Patrick?s Day parade with a 16-foot tripod was released early this evening, after more than 30 hours in police custody. Three protesters were charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing vehicular traffic. One protester, who was pulled through the air and violently dumped off the top of the tripod by police, was charged with reckless endangerment and resisting arrest.
"The idea that they would charge me with reckless endangerment is outrageous", said protester Emmaia Gelman, who was swung through the air at the top of a pole by police before being dumped ? handcuffed and head-first ? off the top of a police truck by arresting officers. "The police were so intent on clearing the street for the parade that they nearly killed me to do it."
"Police violence against St. Patrick?s Day protesters is intense. Thousands of officers march in the parade, and they seem bent on exacting vengeance on those who dare to object to the parade?s message of hate," said J.F. Mulligan of Irish Queers. "The bigotry of the parade extends naturally to the police who march in it ? police homophobia and brutality rears its head year upon year."
Irish Queers cited police violence during arrests, anti-gay language used by officers at the 18th Precinct, punitive 30-hours' custody, and deliberate misinformation given to attorneys about protesters? whereabouts in the legal system, as illegal harassment of protesters and attempts to chill dissent.
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Attack on Family Damages Irish in NYC
Irish Echo, September 10-16, 2003 (not archived on Irish Echo website)
By Emmaia Gelman, John Francis Mulligan and Teresa Gutierrez
Last month, a Sikh family was brutally assaulted by several men who yelled racist epithets. While the attackers kicked and punched, they yelled obscenities, such as gOsama bin Ladenh and ggo back to your country.h
It happened in Queens, but the attackersf epithets were delivered in Irish accents; they had come out of an Irish bar. Were they newcomers flexing their new American muscles? Were they schooled in US-style racism?
The snowballing anti-immigrant racism of Ireland of the last few years is a strange fit in New York City, where Irish immigrants have suffered discrimination in housing, jobs and opportunity alongside browner immigrants for over 150 years. The attackers were listed as gwhite menh | no doubt about their identity now, but how long is it that the Irish have counted themselves white? How long since the Irish were a race apart from the English, the Germans, the Dutch who owned the streets of New York?
Teresa lives next door to the Sikh family, and to the Irish tenant who, presumably unknowing, brought the attackers home with him. As Teresa and her girlfriend watched television that Sunday night, they heard a commotion outside. Looking out the window of their second floor apartment, they saw their neighbors, the Singhs, being beaten in the street.
gWe started to yell out the window, demanding the attackers stop, calling on the neighborhood to help,h Teresa told us, as we stood with her on a streetcorner in Jackson Heights holding candles, at a vigil against anti-immigrant violence. gWefre middle aged, not in great shape, but we grabbed our baseball bat and ran downstairs. We heard it again as we came down, the heavy Irish accents screaming epithets. By the time we got there, our local pizza deliveryman had arrived and jumped in to stop the attack.h Together they chased the racists off.
Whatfs the price of accusations like gterrorist!h or gtraitor!h against whole races of people? Racially-targeted campaigns of guilt once drove a whole people underground for centuries, to live in fear of some charge of conspiracy leveled against them; remember it? The days of internment, not so long behind us, are replayed again now for the Singhs, for the South Asian, Arab and Muslim populations of Woodside, Jackson Heights, Bay Ridgec New York neighborhoods where Irish memories, which once knew 1916 like it was yesterday, now seem shamefully short.
In Queens late at night, Teresa says, as she walks home from the Number 7 train past the Irish bars on Woodside Avenue, shefs never been afraid, even if people are drinking. The sound of Irish immigrants makes her smile.
Because therefs a certain camaraderie among immigrants; our parents played soccer in the fields of New Yorkfs parks, and shared hard work with people from all parts of the world. gAs a Latina,h Teresa said as we marched in the candlelit procession toward Woodside, gI see my Irish neighbors as fellow immigrants | as people who would understand discrimination, or oppression. I hear about the Irish fight for independence from the British and I relate to that struggle. It makes a bond between the Irish and Latin Americans, who also dream of liberation.h She is doubly sad that fellow immigrants, Irish neighbors, were the ones beating and yelling racist epithets at the Sikh family next door.
It has always been the work of colonizers to turn one set of slaves against another. In the Caribbean, Dutch and English plantation-holders turned Indian slaves against African ones by offering them a few extra privileges; in Ireland, gombeen men, allowed to make a bit of money while still bound by landlordsf laws, were used with great success to keep their poorer neighbors in debt and servitude. In the United States, do the Irish who slide in, without papers, to slave in low-wage jobs and hide from the INS, think theyfre free? Or do Irish immigrants become more slaves with a little bit of skin privilege, who turn on slaves without it?
Nothing happens in a vacuum, not even hate. The attackers were enabled by the politics currently emanating from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security; the kind of racist hysteria that fosters anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant frenzy.
The Singhs received bruises, cuts and minor injuries. A fatal tragedy was prevented. The trauma however on the family, especially the children, cannot be measured. And Teresa will never forget it either. We tell her wefre writing about it so the Irish community will know and remember too. But Teresa is concerned about the attackers. gThen I hope they read the article and remember where they came from,h she says. gBecause they should know. Sikhs and Pakistanis and Mexicans and other immigrants have so much more in common with them than they do differences. Itfs important that they know.h
And there was more damage done, not only to the Singhs, but to the place of Irishness in New York. Because when the neighborhood drew together after the attack, on a corner in Jackson Heights, to call for racial unity and join together against oppression, we were missing. No Irish immigrant groups were there to demand the right to live and work in peace in a new place, no Irish labor groups were there to confront exploitation, no Irish republican groups were there to challenge colonial power | none but a few lone members of the Irish community, on their own steam as Irish lesbians and gay men, Irish republicans, activists trained in an Irish tradition of resistance. So who are we then, if wefre not those things any longer? If we leave ourselves to be represented by the boys who beat the Singhs out of their home, and pass no remark?
IQ's Letter to Irish Organizations -- Immigration Rights
September 28, 2003
On Saturday, October 4th, the Immigrant Workersf Freedom Ride will be converging on Flushing Meadows-Corona Park for a rally, as the climax to a nationwide trek for legalization, immigrant rights, labor and civil rights.
As a human community and an Irish community, it is urgent that we speak out for immigrant human rights and against injustices. It was not long ago that Irish immigrants universally suffered harsh, inhumane and despicable treatment while trying to move toward a better life. And many continuing abuses of immigrants affect the Irish community here. Irish immigrants have it easier here than some immigrants for various reasons, including racial privilege, but our families have certainly faced their share of hardship and abuses. It has been the endurance and activism of Irish immigrants that has allowed for generations of the Irish American community to flourish.
As Irish Queers and as New Yorkers, we invite you to join with us as we unite our voices with immigrants of all stripes, by forming an Irish community contingent at the Immigrant Workersf Freedom Ride. If you are unable to march, we urge you to raise your voice publicly in support of the Freedom Ride and rights for all immigrants | in the Irish American newspapers and anywhere else you are able. This is an issue that our community cannot afford to ignore.
We will be meeting at the corner of 111th Street and 45th Avenue in Queens, at 9:45am on Saturday, October 4th. Please let us know what your plans are | whether you will participate on the day, or make a statement of support in another way | by calling (212) 289-1101.
Thank you,
Sean OfConnor
for Irish Queers
P.S. General information about the Freedom Ride can be found at www.iwfr.org.