Organization Pushes Parade Organizers to Open March to All Now

WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, today applied to have an Irish-American contingent from the organization included as an official participant in next year's St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City.

Parade organizers recently announced that in 2015, for the first time in the event's long history, an LGBT group—which represents staff at NBC Universal, the television network broadcasting the parade--would be allowed to march under its own banner.

“We are encouraged to learn that a group of LGBT people will be able to march in next year's St. Patrick's Day parade under a banner identifying them as LGBT,” the letter reads. “We see this as an important and long-overdue first step toward full inclusion for LGBT people in one of the city's oldest and most storied traditions.”

At the time of the announcement, parade officials said that OUT@NBCUniversal was the only LGBT group that applied to march next year. HRC urges the parade organizers to consider its application as well as those of other LGBT groups, including Irish Queers, which has long fought to be included in the iconic event.

Earlier this year, HRC hailed  the decisions of brewers Guinness, Heineken, and Sam Adams to drop their sponsorships of St. Patrick’s Day parades that perpetuate discrimination against LGBT groups by banning their participation. And it has commended New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had pledged to continue to boycott the parade until discrimination against LGBT groups ended.

Full text of HRC's letter to the NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade organizing committee can be found here.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.
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