March turns a corner
Bklyn St. Patrick’s Day Parade formally welcomes fi rst LGBTQ participants
Brendan Fay Brooklyn Irish LGBTQ Organization
HISTORIC MOMENT: (Top) Members of the Brooklyn Irish LGBTQ organization joined Park Slope Assemblyman Robert Carroll, third from right, to
show off their Irish and rainbow fl ags ahead of their formal appearance in this year’s Brooklyn St. Patrick’s Day Parade. (Bottom left) Irish LGBTQ
activist Brendan Fay, second from left, and other members of the Lavender and Green Alliance protested the group’s exclusion from the 1999 march,
for which cops cuffed them — an arrest that (bottom right) made headlines in our sister publication the Brooklyn Paper’s now-defunct Park Slope
Paper at the time.
COURIER L PS IFE, MARCH 8–14, 2019 3
BY COLIN MIXSON
Organizers of the borough’s
eponymous St. Patrick’s Day
parade this year will formally
welcome local LGBTQ marchers
for the fi rst time in the procession’s
44-year history — a
historic change for the event
that excluded those communities
for too long, according to a
longtime Irish-American LGBTQ
advocate.
“It is ground breaking, it is
historic, it is a huge moment,”
said Brendan Fay, the founder
of advocacy group the Lavender
and Green Alliance, whom
police previously arrested for
protesting the local march,
and who for decades has advocated
for more inclusive St.
Patrick’s Day parades across
the fi ve boroughs.
Leaders of the Brooklyn
Irish LGBTQ Organization
announced on Feb. 26 that parade
organizers accepted their
group as one of dozens of entities
that will march in the
March 17 procession through
Park Slope , encouraging supportive
locals of all genders
and sexual orientations to walk
beside them as they take to the
streets without fear of arrest.
“For many years, people
within the LGBTQ community
had to separate from
their identities to march in
the parade,” said Lisa Fane,
a co-founder of the local Irish
LGBTQ organization. “We’re
proud of our LGBTQ history
and we feel this has been missing
in the parade.”
Brooklyn St. Patrick’s Day
Parade organizers’ decision
to welcome more diverse participants
comes years after
leaders of the city’s St. Paddy’s
Day march through Manhattan
invited Fay’s alliance to
join that procession in 2015 ,
but as stagers of other borough
based processions, including
the March 3 Staten Island
St. Patrick’s Day parade ,
continue to formally exclude
LGBTQ marchers.
And the opportunity for
LGBTQ Brooklynites to openly
celebrate their Irish heritage,
and their sexual and gender
identities, is a huge victory for
advocates — especially Fay,
who said he was heartbroken
when cops cuffed him along
with seven others for “parading
without a permit” after
they slipped into the ranks of
the 1999 Brooklyn St. Patrick’s
Day Parade.
“To be Irish and arrested
for seeking to celebrate Irish
heritage and culture with your
community was devastating,”
he said.
The local Irish LGBTQ
group formed by Fane and
Matthew McMorrow, both of
whom live in Park Slope, fi led
its application to appear in this
year’s parade — which will step
off 20 years after the march
where police arrested Fay —
after spending two years building
a coalition of supporters,
including local Assemblyman
Robert Carroll (D–Park Slope),
whose grandfather John Carroll
co-founded the annual
Kings County Celtic procession
back in 1975.
And organizers of the event
— who met with Carroll and
the Brooklyn Irish LGBTQ
Organization’s leaders several
times last month, after
receiving the formal application
in January — ultimately
approved, according to Fane,
who said getting them to agree
to diversify the parade didn’t
require too much persuasion
after recent changes to other
marches.
Brendan Fay