Donohue declined to attend those sessions and dropped out of the parade. GLAAD said on its websitethat the training addresses parade logistics like lineup times, check-in locations, and NYPD safety policies. His application was accepted, but Donohue reportedly objected to what he characterized as mandatory "gay training sessions." Patrick's Day Parade under a gay-pride banner, and said it would be tantamount to his wanting to march in the Gay Pride Parade under a "Straight Is Great" banner.ĭonohue later applied to march in the Gay Pride Parade. In February, Donohue publicly rejected the idea that gays should be allowed to march in the St. I had no intention of marching in the parade." "I wanted to push them to tell me when I didn't agree with your rules that you weren't going to go along with it. This was a ploy, and they took the sucker's bait," Donohue said Wednesday.
The president of the Catholic League told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV that he dropped plans to march in New York City's Gay Pride Parade because he was being forced to comply with rules that he said were hypocritical and exclusionary.
That said, we’ll still be there to ensure traffic safety and good order during this huge, complex event.Bill Donohue wants to set the record straight. She added: “The idea of officers being excluded is disheartening and runs counter to our shared values of inclusion and tolerance. The New York Police Department commissioner apologized for the raid during a briefing in 2019, calling it “wrong, plain and simple.”ĭetective Sophia Mason, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department, said on Saturday the department’s “annual work to ensure a safe, enjoyable Pride season has been increasingly embraced by its participants.” The Queer Liberation March aimed for a protest vibe, saying the main Pride march was too heavily policed by the same department that raided Stonewall a half century earlier. In 2019, there were two marches in Manhattan after some in the community concluded that the annual parade had become too commercialized. Pride NYC’s announcement Saturday follows a division among organizers in recent years in planning for celebrations of LGBTQ pride in New York City. Pride season occurs this year amid activism inspired by the response to racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death last year at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The uprising is largely credited with fueling the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Those marches came a year after the 1969 uprising outside Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, in response to a police raid. The disruptions frustrated activists who had hoped to collectively mark the 50th anniversary of the first Gay Pride parades and marches in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in 1970. The parade is scheduled for June after the coronavirus prevented many Pride events worldwide last year, including in New York which instead hosted virtual performances in front of masked participants and honored front-line workers in the pandemic crisis. The group called the ban an “abrupt about-face” and said the decision “to placate some of the activists in our community is shameful.” READ NEXT Word of the ban came out Friday when the Gay Officers Action League said in a release it was disheartened by the decision. Police will provide first response and security “only when absolutely necessary as mandated by city officials,” the group said, adding it hoped to keep police officers at least one city block away from event perimeter areas where possible. It will also increase the event’s security budget to boost the presence of community-based security and first responders while reducing the police department’s presence. “The sense of safety that law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening, and at times dangerous, to those in our community who are most often targeted with excessive force and/or without reason,” the group said.
In their statement, NYC Pride urged members of law enforcement to “acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward.” NEW YORK (AP) - Organizers of New York City’s Pride events said Saturday they are banning police and other law enforcement from marching in their huge annual parade until at least 2025 and will also seek to keep on-duty officers a block away from the celebration of LGBTQ people and history.