A conservative Roman Catholic
who dropped out of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City this week after 20 years told
Newsmax TV on Friday that his organization's exit from the celebrated event is permanent.
"I'm not coming back and I'll tell you why," Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner, explaining that his feud is not with the local Catholic archdiocese but with parade organizers, who admitted a gay-rights group to next year's edition while ignoring pro-life groups.
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Donohue said the parade's organizers "double-crossed" him after they had verbally agreed to his terms for not opposing the inclusion of a gay rights group in the 2015 lineup — allow a pro-life organization to march as well.
"They said, 'That's fine, Bill. That's going to be done and it's over.' I said, 'Fine, then count me in,'" he said. "But guess what happened? The gays made the cut and they said no to the pro-lifers."
No expressly gay or pro-life group has ever had an official place in the procession, which dates to 1752 and was founded in honor of a fifth-century missionary who became the patron saint of Ireland.
Donohue said that both exclusions were in keeping with the parade's apolitical tradition.
"The only exception they ever made was to have a banner saying 'England out of Ireland,'" he said. "That's the only political statement they've ever allowed."
After the announcement that a group of gay employees of NBC would march next year, the 2015 parade's grand marshal, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York's Roman Catholic Archdiocese,
endorsed the addition.
Dolan's blessing
drew sharp criticism from some conservative Catholics as a contradiction of Church doctrine, which identifies homosexual acts as a sin.
Donohue,
in a previous "MidPoint" interview, voiced concerns about gay participation because, he said, anti-Catholic activists were trying to climb aboard and could turn a religiously inspired event into a bawdy gay-rights march.
But on Friday, Donohue said that he is not at odds with Cardinal Dolan. "He'll be a great grand marshal," he said.
Donohue instead singled out parade executives, specifically vice chairman and director John Lahey, who is also president of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.
Donohue charged that Lahey and others want to "sever" the parade's founding connection, "neuter" its religious character, and appease would-be boycotters, including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Irish ale brewer Guinness.
"I don't like the direction that Leahy is taking this parade," said Donohue, "and if they're going to turn it into a diversity free-for-all, they're going to have bigger problems, too."
"The parade rules are what they are, and they have a right to change it," he said. "It's not Dolan's parade, it's not Donohue's parade. But once you change the rules, you've got to change them uniformly. You can't just cherrypick — or I guess you can, because they got away with it.
"Or did they?" he continued. "They promised me they'd have a pro-life group. But I guess they say now we have no room for a pro-life group. … See, this is why the public is on my side and why the parade officials are in deep trouble."
Donohue said that even if organizer's of the parade were to reverse themselves, encourage pro-life participation, and ask him back into the fold, he would decline "on principle" and to avoiding being "used and abused" — meaning labeled an anti-gay bigot — by "elite establishment-type Catholics who want to be loved by the progressives who are not Catholic."
"It's just best to cut clean," he said, "and it also frees me up now to say exactly what I want."
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