Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade ends 60-year ban on LGBTQ+ groups

With a new leadership installed, the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade will allow LGBTQ+ groups to participate under their own banner for the first time in 60 years. The event has become notorious for its steadfast refusal to end the longtime ban despite growing pressure to do so for decades. But Edward Patterson, the new head of Richmond County St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee, has finally made it happen.

The Staten Island parade was long thought to be one of the only St. Patrick’s Day celebrations left in the world that still excluded LGBTQ+ people, justifying its policy based on the teachings of the Catholic Church. LGBTQ+ people were also banned for 20 years from the parade that takes place in Manhattan – the biggest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the world – but that ban ended in 2014.

“Quite simply, it’s just time,” Patterson told reporters on Tuesday. “People stepped up with a change in mindset that, frankly, wanted the controversy to go away.”

Parade organizers have invited…

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