New York St. Patrick's Day Parade allows second gay group
Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade will allow a second openly gay group to participate in next year's march down Fifth Avenue, officials said on Tuesday, after ending the long-standing ban on LGBT groups last spring.
Organizers voted on Monday to permit the Lavender and Green Alliance, a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, to join the annual display of Irish-American pride. The parade through Midtown Manhattan is staged every year on March 17.
"With the decision, we cross a historic threshold and our members will proudly march up Fifth Avenue with our banner,” Brendan Fay, founder and chair of the Lavender and Green Alliance, said in a statement with the parade organizers. The group's application had been rejected every year since 1994.
Organizers of the city's St. Patrick's Day parade, the world's largest with up to 250,000 marchers, had faced mounting criticism for excluding openly gay groups. It broke with that policy by allowing a single group, Out@NBCUniversal, to participate in the March 2015 parade.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/york-st-patricks-day-parade-allows-second-gay-194327156.html
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