Last year, after organizers of New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade announced that a gay organization would be allowed to march for the first time, the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue announced that his group would boycott the parade.
Donohue’s excuse for not marching was that he had been “betrayed” because he was told that if a gay group was allowed to march then so too would an anti-choice group be allowed to participate, but then organizers did not follow through on that promise.
Yesterday, Donohue appeared on Steve Malzberg’s Newsmax program to discuss the issue, asserting that “my own people, Irish Catholics, did me in” but now, at least, people have learned that “you’re not going to double cross Bill Donohue.”
Allowing gays to march in the parade is an “affront,” Donohue said, because “gays have their own parade.”
“Why does anybody who happens to be gay or straight have to have their own banner to march in anybody’s … parade. Just blend in like everybody else,” he said.
“It’s regrettable what’s happened,” he continued. “I’m very happy about the stand I took and I’ve been praised by a lot of people for at least somebody’s going to draw a line in the sand. You’re not going to double cross Bill Donohue”:
