The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is a Catholic celebration beginning with a Holy Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It is an ancient affair by American standards, steeped in centuries of tradition celebrating the Saint who set Ireland on fire for Christ and it includes much Irish culture and lore. It is a rare iconic cultural event in a culturally starved country. The Irish Queers and Guinness would like to start a fire of their own to irrevocably transform this treasure of a tradition. The scandal is one in a long line of assaults on public morality and a troubling omen for the future of this benighted country.
Guinness Beers has an ironic sales slogan. They say “the Choices We Make Reveal the True Nature of Our Character.” Hmm, sure, spot on really. So what does it say about the character of Guinness, an Irish company that chose to withdraw support from an Irish tradition honoring an Irish Catholic Saint and instead chose to support a non-traditional, non-Catholic morally disordered political agenda? Got Character?
It is vital to note that the parade organizers allow no banners or groups to march promoting political causes; it is not that kind of parade. Why would Guinness try to force parade organizers to make an exception for the gay rights movement? Especially in light of the fact that in 1995 the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that private parade organizers are guaranteed by the First amendment to determine their own rules for their march? Guinness demonstrates an odd business ethic by pulling sponsorship claiming the need for “diversity” when clearly they are trying to coerce the uniformity of opinion onto a legitimately controversial topic. They will get no pass here. Guinness has proven their sales slogan to be an empty platitude for them. Still, one wonders if Guinness’ lack of character is nearly as devastating as the absurdity of the demands and statements made by the Irish Queers.
There is not a single statement, sign, banner, or message put out by the Irish Queers that possesses logical consistency or ethical integrity. The banners and signs are very troubling indeed for their misrepresentation of truth. Examine only a few. It is merely an unfortunate homophone, but on the lightest note, the Irish Queers insist that “there is ‘gae’ in Gaelic.” To the contrary, the Geal in Gaelic is an Irish Warrior, not an Irish Queer. I would like to see them explain that on the field of battle in the land of Éire.
The Irish queers arrogate a rather imposing stance on New York public employees marching in the ancient parade. The Irish Queers held signs reading: “cops and firefighters aren’t heroes when they support hate.” The specific and intended purpose of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade is not hate. That the protestors claim otherwise shows that they will assert incongruous premises with nary a care for truth in representation.
And consider a very bizarre false equivalent on this sign: “no queers? No cops either!” How did they reach this infantile conclusion?
Another false equivalent, a sign sporting pink shamrocks senselessly inquires: “it took the Church 367 years to apologize to Galileo, I guess we can’t expect an apology for homophobia anytime soon.” Well, no, first off because the Church is not homophobic and second, no apology is necessary for a morally ordered position. But more logically offensive is the disparity between the Galileo affair and the Church’s moral stance on homosexuality, there is no relationship and nothing to compare here, just yet another false equivalent.
Many signs said “bigotry shouldn’t be paraded.” How is the celebration of St. Paddy’s Day parading bigotry? This insult gets at the root of the Irish Queers’ violence against truth and society. One of the biggest insults the Irish Queers constantly hurl at those of us who oppose sanctioning the gay lifestyle is that we are bigoted and intolerant. I doubt they know what bigoted means, but even if they did, it is unlikely that it would temper their outrageous behavior.
This is something we ought to get straight, (no pun intended). Bigoted is defined as having “intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.” The great irony with this entire episode is that the real bigots are the Irish Queers, not the organizers of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The idea of the Irish Queers marching under a political banner at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade is as absurd as the NRA marching for second amendment rights at a Girl Scout parade. It is a non sequitur because there is no relationship between the St. Patrick’s Day festivities and gay rights. The real bigots are the Irish Queers who try to impose gay rights issues on those who have no interest in them concomitant to celebrating the Irish Saint.
Gay rights advocates are the most bigoted and intolerant class of all because disagreement is normally met with rigid intolerance if not threats and violence. To drive this point home, Bill Donahue from the Catholic League solicited the Heritage of Pride Parade organizers to see if they would allow him to march in their gay pride parades with the banner reading “Straight is Great.” They told him that he must attend “gay training sessions” before they would allow him to march. Bill Donahue said he rejected their rule and they told him the classes are “mandatory.” The hypocrisy is glaring because unlike the St. Patrick’s Day Parade that excludes all political banners, the gay pride parades encourage political banners, just not from the straight community. So they have a double standard. Also, gay pride organizers expect everyone to follow their rules, which are unfairly discriminatory, but they don’t respect the rules of other organizers even though those rules are clearly fair and possess no double standard.
The Irish Queers rage against reality intolerantly screeching the demand for “tolerance.” They rightfully claim this is a virtue, but again, like everything else in the gay pride movement, their definition of “tolerance” bears no resemblance to truthful tolerance. Imaginative conservatives understand that we are called to tolerate all human persons as precious images and likenesses of God. However, we do not tolerate unprincipled or disordered actions, and this is as it should be. Well-ordered society cannot tolerate bad behavior but must tolerate all persons!
By diametric converse, the Irish Queers clearly demonstrate that they clamor for tolerance of disordered behavior and they sanction intolerance and even violence towards human persons who disagree with them. Their error is that they refer to licentiousness as something to be tolerated and that precious human souls are to be degraded if acquiescence to their view is faltering or absent. This is the opposite of tolerance, but characteristic of the entire gay pride movement. To add further irony to this already insanely bizarre set of circumstances, the Irish Queers, though they tolerate all manner of aberrant behavior, will not tolerate the behavior of those persons they deem “hateful” or “bigoted” even if it is as innocuous as marching in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Books on the topic of this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore.
A delightfully straight forward analysis of the contemporary homosexual phenomenon. How far can society go in ‘accepting’ abnormal behavior and continue to be a society?
Good job. These people (by which I mean the “LGBT&Q” Lobby – I noticed a while ago that “LGBT” is now politically incorrect, because it “excluded” Q – questioning sexuality) are worse than limousine liberals. They are privileged in the extreme, society defers to them at every turn to give them an opportunity to express themselves, live their life-style, engage in their personal choices etc etc – and yet still they feel compelled to force their way into every area of human activity. Not content with having their own “Gay parades” – they now want to impose themselves on everyone elses associations. Boy Scouts – no longer about God, Country and Virtue – must now be about “homosexual rights”. St. Patrick’s Day – can’t be about St. Patrick any more – must be about “homosexual rights.” Holy Communion? Sorry – can’t be about Catholic principles any more – must be about “homosexual rights.” The bigoted intolerance of these people is appalling. And strangely enough – it takes real courage to oppose them, because it is almost impossible not to be labelled a homophobic bigot if one does, or to be put in the same camp as people who use violence against minorities.
You are correct in pointing out that St. Patrick had nothing do do with the homosexual issue except for teaching what the Bible says. However Guinness has even less to do with the meaning of St. Patrick and the American custom of getting drunk to honor this Saint is rather outrageous if you think about it. Maybe instead of swilling barrels of green beer we should make a trip to Mass and contemplate how Christ became man for the sake of our souls and our lives here on Earth.
You’d do better if you didn’t include falsehoods.
Bill Donahue is lying. The “Gay training sessions” were mandatory meetings to discuss the logistics of the parade. Where to line up, when to be there, etc. They weren’t trying to “convert” Bill Donahue–no matter how much he seems to be fantasizing about it.
You and Bill might want to re-read the 8th commandment.
“Gay rights advocates are the most bigoted and intolerant class of all because disagreement is normally met with rigid intolerance if not threats and violence.”
“Disagreement is normally met with rigid intolerance if not threats and violence”……..like Crusades, witch trials, heretic burnings, inquisitions, ghettos, purges–is that the kind of “rigid intolerance” you’re referring to? Because it seems like the CC has a long and illustrious history of doing exactly that.
There is a direct correlation between Galileo and the LGBT community. The Catholic Church was wrong then, and they are wrong now. They used their might to silence progress 400 years ago, and they are trying–but no longer succeeding–to silence progress now.
You talk about bigotry–well Mr. Rummelsburg—I’d suggest you re-read your article and ask yourself if Jesus would approve of your positions and language.
I’ll just say that your screed reminds me of Gandhi’s remark “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
An excellent article. Just yesterday I attempted to bring some sanity to a discussion of whether disagreeing with “same-sex marriage” made you homophobic (an absurd premise) by redefining the all-to-frequently thrown around term ‘bigot’. To these end I focused on expanding Chesterton’s saying “It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.” and other similar sayings. This word has become far too twisted in our age and used to silence diversity rather than promote it. Alas, I was utterly ignored and they returned to bashing people without actually considering what they had to say, they never stopped to consider they might be wrong.
Richard, it is interesting that the “Irish queers” side of the argument is sincerely incapable of dialogue. They are completely unaware of their own “bigot” status and the phobia seriously belongs to them- a phobia is an irrational fear- they have a phobia of honest and vigorous debate- thus they are the truthful emblems of “bigotry.” I would welcome a reasonable debate, but before it gets started the other side goes immediately to personal insults and violence against truth and persons. This is the clearest sign of the disordered nature of their position. They cannot for a single moment conceive of the idea that they might be wrong-
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it.”
I see that my reasonable and polite comment has been deleted because it did not fit with your website’s agenda.
Funny, that…
I did not find your comment “reasonable and polite.” It included these sentences which would be considered obnoxious to all polite readers: “But other than the overall themes and ideas that your ignorant and homophobic article expresses, well done. Great piece. By that, I mean at least you spelled all of your words correctly.” We prefer thoughtful discussion from all who comment on this site. Perhaps you wish to rewrite your comments. Or perhaps you would enjoy a site with a different comment policy: “All comments are subject to moderation. We welcome the comments of those who disagree, but not those who are disagreeable.”
Mr Elliott, I find Ed’s remark especially amusing because three days earlier, crminca left a comment that obviously did not ‘fit your website’s agenda’! BTW, well written, incisive article. Well done, Sir!