The St. Pat’s for All parade took place Sunday, March 2, in Queens. Grand marshals were City Council Speaker Chris Quinn and journalist Pete Hamill. Photo: GRCC.
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By Erline Andrews
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Samantha Kavanagh stepped back to show off her green and white pinafore dress, which she wore because it seemed “most Irish.” Kavanagh, a transgender woman, was part of the 1,500 or so people taking part in the ninth-annual Queens St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday, March 2. It was the second time Kavanagh attended and her excitement was obvious. She flitted about with an Irish flag and a rainbow boa, soaking up the scene with a hand-held camera. She eagerly shared her joy with journalists.
“I feel so welcome here,” she said with a wide smile. “I feel more welcome here than I do in Ireland. They don’t accept people like me in Ireland.”
The parade, affectionately known as St. Pat's for All, has become not only a celebration of Irish culture but also of Queens’ diversity: tartan kilts brush again brightly colored Peruvian dresses, and school children dance among senior citizens
But the parade is also a reminder of the thing it was created to fight: intolerance. The first St. Pat’s for All in 2000 was held reaction to the Manhattan's parade, which excludes gay groups.
As an openly gay official and an Irish-New Yorker, Quinn finds herself in the middle of the St. Patrick’s Day flap annually. Last year, she snubbed the Manhattan parade to join an inclusive one in Dublin, Ireland.
This year, she was a grand marshal of the St. Pat’s for All event.
“As great as today is,” she said Sunday, “it is always tinged with sadness because everyone who is marching today would not be able to march on Fifth Avenue.”
So inclusive is St. Pat’s for All that among the procession was a group—The Radical Homosexual Agenda—protesting Quinn's refusal to intervene in changing the city's rules of assembly (groups of 50 or more are required by law to get a permit).
“We err on the side of hospitality,” said parade organizer Brendan Fay, explaining RHA’s participation. “We seek to find a way to welcome people rather than to keep people out.” He added that he nevertheless wished the RHA had chosen another forum to make their point.
The parade, which goes from 43rd Street and Skillman Avenue to 61st Street and Woodside Avenue in Sunnyside, attracts a contingent of groups which march as much in support of St. Pat's for All as against the March 17 parade along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. Some of this weekend’s participants would never take part in the latter.
“It’s a disgrace that discrimination is allowed to continue,” said Meredith, one of the musicians in a Brooklyn-based marching band called the Rude Mechanical Orchestra. She didn’t give her last name. “It’s important to be here, where everybody is included, celebrating Irish culture,” she said.
Yet many groups refuse invitations to participate in St. Pat's for All precisely because of its openness. Anti-gay protesters have even picketed the event. Fay said he’d offer them tea and shake they hands, saying, “The expression of free speech is a gift of New York.”
The attitude typifies St. Pat’s for All.
“The parade reflects a spirit of generosity that is unique among parades in this city,” Fays said.
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