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At last, a place in St. Patrick’s Day parade
After decades of protest, gay contingent welcomed into NYC tradition
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks at the St. Pat’s for All Parade on March 6 in New York. Brendan Fay, founder of the Lavender & Green Alliance, is in the rainbow scarf. The mayor boycotted the St. Patrick’s Day Parade the last two years for its LGBT exclusion but will go this year. (Photo by Jon Nalley)
The official word announcing that the board of directors of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, a non-profit that runs the annual New York City event every March 17, had invited the LGBT group the Lavender & Green Alliance to the event is a bare-bones statement indicating nothing of the decades of effort that led to the change of heart.
“Since 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the birth of Irish Independence, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade March 17 is a special opportunity for renewed commitment to Irish values and tradition and the Irish role in the 21st century,” board chair John Lahey said in a press release.
Brendan Fay, founder and chair of the Lavender & Green Alliance, which has held its own St. Pat’s For All Parade annually in Queens since 2000, was granted a quote in the release.
“We celebrate the welcome,” he said. “March 17, 2016 will be a great day for hospitality and inclusion.”
There were signs that change was imminent. At last year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Out@NBC, a gay employee group at the affiliate WNBC-TV 4, which broadcasts the event locally, was the first out group welcomed into the parade although unlike Lavender & Green, they weren’t particularly Irish. Some Alliance members viewed the NBC group’s inclusion while their own was left out, a slap in the face.
The ongoing rancor had led to significant tension. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio this year announced the end of a two-year boycott of the 253-year-old event, the largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country. He marched in and spoke at Sunday’s St. Pat’s for All Parade.
“The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is a New York City tradition but for years, Irish LGBT New Yorkers could not show their pride,” he told the Associated Press in a March 2 story. “Finally they can celebrate their heritage by marching in a parade that now represents progress and equality.”
The parade, held rain or shine, begins on Fifth Avenue at 44th Street and ends on Fifth Avenue uptown at 79th Street. It typically runs from about 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. About 200,000 people are in the parade each year. About 300 are expected to march under the Alliance banner.
So why now? Fay told the AP de Blasio’s boycott had an effect. He was the first mayor in more than 20 years to refuse to participate,” the Associated Press reports.
Fay told the Blade there “were many factors bringing us to this historic moment,” and cites boycotts by other elected officials, some of which go back 25 years, pressure from the New York City Council, letters of support from straight Irish New Yorkers, pressure from beer companies like Guinness and Heineken that threatened to pull out and more.
“It was the persistent determination of activism of a determined and hope-filled community,” Fay says. “Not just the LGBT community, but the Irish community as a whole.”
So why was it such a big deal? And in New York City, of all places?
The controversy ties in deeply with the parade’s Catholic roots. First held in 1762, the parade marches up Fifth Avenue and is reviewed from the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In the mid 1800s, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), an Irish-Catholic fraternal organization, became the official sponsor of the parade. Although in 1992, the National AOH directed all its chapters to form separate corporations to run their various parades, the parade’s roots in the Roman Catholic Church — Ireland was essentially a pawn in the Protestant Reformation battles between Italy and England — are strong and deep.
Although the St. Pat’s for All Parade has developed into its own thing and will continue (there were about 100 contingents in the March 6 event), Fay says the significance of the Alliance’s inclusion in the official parade cannot be overstated.
“History will be made for the first time on March 17,” he says. “We’ll be carrying the green Alliance banner and we’re all really feeling the moment. There’s so much joy in the Irish community of New York City and back home in Ireland as well.”
Dignity New York, an LGBT Catholic group that’s the local chapter of DignityUSA, members — of which Fay is one — have been watching this drama unfold for years. They say it just took time for the strong opposition to play out.
“Brendan is much more well versed in the politics of this and all the ins and outs … but I think gradually, you know, the people who wanted the group to march finally won out and I think it was a matter of attrition,” says Jeff Stone, a spokesperson for Dignity New York. “Eventually the older, more conservative members who were against it either left or died or whatever and I understand that Barbara Jones, the consul general of Ireland in New York, tried to urge the committee to let them march. That’s also in line with what’s happening in Ireland, especially now with the pro-same-sex marriage vote. The people of that country have clearly spoken.”
Despite studies that show disparities on all kinds of issues between official Catholic Church teaching and the laity, the anti-gay theology is well documented. As just one example, earlier this month the AOH issued a press release calling for Disney/ABC to “immediately apologize” for its new gay-themed sitcom “The Real O’Neals.” Although careful not to slam gays, it cites Irish stereotypes, anti-Catholicism and gay activist/writer Dan Savage, the show’s executive producer, in a scathing assessment.
“Dan Savage has a well-documented hostility to the Catholic Church,” the statement says. “(We) question the wisdom and motivations of Disney/ABC giving him a national platform to perpetuate his intolerance.”
Stone says movement on same-sex marriage, both in Ireland and the U.S., welcoming gays into the parade, the use of more inclusive language among Catholic leaders and more are all aspects to the policy change. He also says the tide has shifted enough that there were economic considerations as well.
“It’s just not a good situation for them when there’s all this bitterness and controversy surrounding the parade,” he says. “It’s counter to the law in Ireland, it’s not good for tourism. I think they wanted to get this resolved so that the parade could return to being a symbol of celebration and of Irish-American pride and not a source of division and bitterness that it had become for many people. The parade lost a lot of sponsors over this.”
Fay says the change makes a powerful statement.
“I think it’s conveying a message about equality and what I call cultural hospitality,” he says. “There’s an overall feeling of excitement and just really great and joyful expectation. … I’ve really come to appreciate how important cultural gatherings and parades are in our lives and communities.”
Brendan Fay, in the rainbow scarf, on March 6 at the St. Pat’s for All Parade in Queens, New York, with Lavender & Green members and allies. He says the counter parade will continue as it’s developed into its own event over 17 years. (Photo courtesy the Alliance)
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Rainbows in Revolt on a mission to make LGBTQ artists’ voices heard
Rainbows in Revolt on a mission to make LGBTQ artists’ voices heard
Last month’s Pride celebration in D.C. was so fun. Walking around my first Capital Pride with a $15 lemonade I was loving the madness and the color. Artists and small businesses battling banks you’ve never heard of collecting your personal information so you can spin a wheel to snag free merch. Great music blaring, people actually smiling and enjoying themselves, the “Great” American State Fair could never!
The Monument Stage was on Pennsylvania Avenue, directly in front of the National Gallery of Art and I can’t think of a better venue to see live music. How does someone get on the lineup for Pride? How do we accelerate the visibility of the most talented voices in our community to perform in places like this?
There is certainly not a talent gap, but there is a visibility gap. Chappell Roan went from playing for two people in a parking lot to owning the main stage at Coachella in one year. Whether it is shadowbanning or bias in AI, algorithms have been shown to suppress queer artists. In a digital age, how can queer people break through and show the world how talented they are?
Allison and Matt of Rainbows in Revolt are on a mission to make openly LGBTQ+ artists’ voices heard. Their goal is to find “musicians whose queerness is central to their identity as an artist,” and accelerate them to a place where they can actually reach fans.
The only time queer events seem to be in the spotlight is June, but this should be year round, according to Allison and Matt. Rainbows in Revolt wants to act as a “nucleus” for different sub-communities, finding common ground in the universal language of music.
Matt and Allison founded Rainbows as a way to make cheaper, higher quality merchandise for queer artists. While Rainbows has already pledged 20% of their profits to the LGBTQ+ community, with 10% to Whitman-Walker Health and 10% to LGBTQ+ organizations in need, this is just the beginning of the work that they do.
Rainbows “does the dirty work” that artists normally struggle to do on their own with limited resources. Interviews, artist profiles, social promotion, playlist discovery, radio outreach, and merch-funded support. This work is normally expensive, time consuming, and requires lots of different skills. Musicians don’t want to be editing clips to post online. Standup comedians don’t want to make graphics for their tour dates. They want to write more. They want to focus on their craft.
In addition to helping artists find their audience, Rainbows has built other digital tools to help queer people connect, including an interactive Safe Space Map for most major cities. It is hard to know which places are truly safe and supportive just from a simple Google search. Attitudes and actions change, and there should be a simple way for queer people to find other places that align with them. The Safe Spaces Maps are all up to date, and are tagged and filterable. Instead of relying on forums and word of mouth, Rainbows has created a centralized way to find authentic community quickly.
I had a chance to talk with Allison and Matt at Pride where Lily Erin, one of their signature artists, was performing on the Monument stage. Lily Erin is a folk singer who is familiar and forging her own path. Her bittersweet sound echoes through Acadia, and her garb mirrors the New England athletes I grew up with. Gorp Core meets streetwear. A graphic tee, hiking shorts, and creamsicle Jordans.
Her debut single, “Bus Stop,” tells a sad story about unconditional love, and the conditions that still seem to come with it. Graduating into lockdown, Erin needed a new way to connect with herself and others. Lily made “Bus Stop” without an intention to share it, but doing so was a liberation. People have been responding to her honesty around queer-ness, family, and the “ghosts which haunt us” even in the daytime.
Rainbows in Revolt has helped Lily Erin go from bars and backyards to The Monument Stage at Pride. This is a meteoric rise, and a testament to both Erin’s talent and the work of Rainbows to promote her. “A little encouragement goes a long way with early artists,” and by “planting a seed” Rainbows is already seeing their artist garden grow. Community is power, and Erin is a perfect example of how effective simple modern techniques of promotion can be.
A next step for Rainbows is putting on shows themselves. On Oct. 3, Rainbows in Revolt will host an Evening with Ray Boltz at the National City Christian Church. Boltz grew up in the Catholic Church and for many years was the soundtrack to many services, youth camps, and church groups. He was celebrated by millions until he came out in 2008. Allison remembers her community “never playing his music again.”
Rainbows in Revolt is helping him to return to the church, and proving that identity does not need to be exclusive. We live in a complicated world with complicated lines being drawn. Boltz proves that these lines don’t exist, and will be breaking down barriers to bring together communities. To Allison, “a trans woman standing next to a straight white man in church is a powerful teacher.”
The Safe Space maps bridge all types of spaces, and one of the unlikely ones is, perhaps, churches. Matt said that “BYU has only nine safe spaces around their campus and seven of them are churches.” Not all churches are anti-gay, and many times they are the only place for people to find community.
Rainbows in Revolt is just getting started bridging gaps and building community.
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Summer in the City: Free exhibits, movies, more fill D.C.’s calendar
America 250 celebrations continue
From late-night museum visits and outdoor jazz concerts to free movie screenings and America250 exhibitions, Washington’s summer calendar is packed with events that don’t charge admission. Here’s a look at some of the free activities happening across the District through September and beyond.
Museum exhibitions
The Renwick Gallery is presenting State Fairs: Growing American Craft, an exhibition that looks at unique and unconventional crafts from the 19th century to the present. It will run until Sept. 7, and admission is free.
The Arts and Industries Building, located next to the Smithsonian Castle, is presenting the exhibition Voices and Votes: Exploring Democracy Across America. The exhibition features the development of American independence and what that has meant over time, beginning with the Revolutionary War. Admission to the museum is free, and the exhibition runs until Sept. 7.
The National Gallery of Art presents Dear America, an exhibit featuring more than 100 pieces of work, including letters, photographs, and drawings that depict American landscapes and depictions of freedom. The exhibition will run until Sept. 20.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts is exhibiting Burnished: Pueblo Pottery until Sept. 27. The exhibit features pottery from the Southwest, and while most of the pottery belongs to women artists, a few also reflect those who have advocated for women.
Extending past this summer, the exhibition ¡Puro Ritmo! The Musical Journey of Salsa will be at the National Museum of the American Latino until July 2028. The exhibition shows how Afro-Cuban music has become a staple in the U.S. Admission is free.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library will feature the exhibition District Vibes / American Pride: How DC Changed American Culture, which will highlight all of the ways D.C. has impacted American life. The exhibit will run until Sept. 27.
At the Folger Shakespeare Library, the exhibit Imagining Shakespeare: Mythmaking and Storytelling in the Regency Era will be on view through Aug. 2. All the portraits on display come from the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London.
The United States Botanic Garden will be open until 8 p.m. on Aug. 20 and Sept. 17, as part of America’s State Flowers: An America250 Celebration. The evenings will include live music, mocktails, ice cream, and snacks.
The National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden will have extended hours, staying open until 8 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday until Sept. 3.
Live performances
On Aug. 7, the postgame Nationals concert series will continue with Jordan Davis performing. To see the concert, guests just need to buy tickets to the Nationals game.
Jazz in the Garden will run each Friday until Aug. 14. The event has free admission, but those interested have to enter a lottery due to the high demand for the event.
From May to October, Capital Harvest Market occurs every Wednesday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. The market features fresh foods, crafts, and recipes for unique dishes. A full list of vendors is available on Capital Harvest’s website.
Live! Concert Series on the Plaza will feature live performances at Woodrow Wilson Plaza until Sept. 25. The performances run Monday to Friday from 12-1 p.m. Admission is free to the performances.
DowntownDC Live! at Anthem Row is running until July 30, with free performances every Thursday from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The final performance will feature HUE and a vintage flea market hosted by Get Flee Marketplace.
Located in Adams Morgan, AdMo Vibe will present live performances every Thursday at 6 p.m. in Kalorama Park. Guests are encouraged to check out Adams Morgan before and after shows, and it is an event for all ages.
Other events
Union Market is hosting drive-in movies on Aug. 8, featuring “Monsters, Inc.”, and Sept. 12, featuring “Wicked.” On Aug. 8, the parking lot will open at 7:30 p.m., with the movie starting at 8:25 p.m. On Sept. 12, the parking lot will open at 6:35 p.m., and the movie will start at 7:30 p.m.
Sunset Cinema at the Wharf will also be available one day a month. On Aug. 12, “10 Things I Hate About You” will premiere, and on Aug. 26, “Project Hail Mary.” No tickets are necessary.
The Library of Congress will also show movies. On Aug. 6, guests are invited to watch “Apollo 13.” The movie will be shown at 8 p.m., with additional live performances beginning at 7 p.m.
For fans of Asian media, the Okaton convention will be at Walter E. Washington Convention Center from July 31-Aug. 2. Festivities will include cosplay contests, skits, live music, and panel discussions.
Washington Spirit’s season also begins in August. The Spirit is Washington’s National Women’s League, with matchups occurring between the San Diego Wave, the North Carolina Courage, the Orlando Pride, and the Bay FC.
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Summer in D.C. brings sports, Restaurant Week, festivals, and more
Summer in D.C. just hits different. Congress is out, school is out, the sun is out, thighs are out. With the skies clearing from Canadian smoke, here are a few ways to stay entertained.
Dining
Summer restaurant week: The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) is once again hosting Summer Restaurant Week, Aug. 18-24. This weeklong dining experience showcases the dynamic dining scene of the DMV, including 2026 RAMMY Award-winning favorites (the annual D.C. food awards show that took place June 29). Participating restaurants will offer three-course brunch and lunch selections for $25 or $35 per person, and three-course dinners for $40, $55 and $65 per person.
New Restaurants: A handful of new spots have opened, so the summer is a great time to check them out:
- Oribu: A new Mediterranean-Japanese restaurant in the Grand Hyatt hotel, which just underwent a remodeling effort. The sleek restaurant brings upscale charm, with dishes like Wagyu beef tartare with potato pavé and caviar.
- The Oak Room: A snazzy old-school American grill has just opened in Georgetown, alongside its sister upstairs supper club (Bernadette’s) restaurant, in the old El Centro space.
- Uchi: This showy Japanese sushi-forward chain has landed in Dupont with a chef’s tasting menu of favorites like fatty tuna.
- Kathmandu: Recalling the capital of Nepal, this warm, buzzy subterranean restaurant right in the heart of U Street brings spice, flair, and rare ingredients to its dishes (see: buffalo burgers) and drinks.
Sports
- Washington Spirit Pride Night OUT: On Sunday, Aug. 23, head to Audi Field for a massive, high-energy game following the exciting month of World Cup. The designated Pride Night OUT game promises boisterous crowds plus pre- and post-game community engagements.
- Washington Tennis Open – Now called the Mubadala DC Open, this annual tournament is only combined mens’ and womens’ 500-level tennis tournament in the world. The open is one of D.C.’s longest-standing sports traditions, and will take place at the Rock Creek Park Tennis Center July 25-Aug. 2. Naomi Osaka, Venus Williams, Ben Shelton, Frances Tiafoe, and others are expected to play.
Festivals
- Afro Plus Fest: This huge, three-day Afro-Caribbean Hip-Hop Festival brings together headliners Davido, Alkaline, and Wizkid, plus Tems and Ayra Starr. The event moves from RFK to the Northwest Stadium Complex for three days, Sept. 4-6.
- Capital Fringe Festival: Running from July 11-21, this massive celebration features dozens of live theater, comedy, dance, and boundary-pushing nighttime performances across multiple DC neighborhoods.
- The National Book Festival returns, with headliners like Cynthia Erivo, and Martin Scorsese. The one-day festival, Saturday, Aug. 22, brings together bookworms and word nerds under the theme “America 250: It’s Your Story.” There are talks, workshops, musical sessions and more.
- All Things Go: A three-day festival Sept. 25-27 at Merriweather Post Pavilion featuring Mitski, Hayley Williams, Brandi Carlile, MUNA, Zara Larsson, Ethel Cain, and many, many more artists. There are single-day and three-day tickets. Featuring and highlighting female artists, the festival has turned into a must-see for many LGBTQ audience members.
- Fuchsia Fest: The inaugural Fuchsia Fest is a new multi-day celebration created to celebrate LGBTQ community and expression, bringing together a mix of community gatherings, entertainment, and nightlife. The event takes place Sept. 18-20 and is hosted by Capital Pride.
Art and Music
- United We Dance: A high-energy rave with house, techno, bass, and festival music, on Aug. 1 at the 9:30 Club.
- The Fray. On Aug. 14, this American rock band famous for How To Save A Life is at Merriweather Post Pavilion.
- Kesha: Kesha’s high-energy The Freedom Tour comes to the D.C. area on Aug. 14 at Jiffy Lube Live.
- ALOK: On Sept. 3 at Lincoln Theater, ALOK (they/them) performs. The poet, comedian, and actor is putting on a new comedy show.
- 2charm, the emerging Australian electronic club-pop duo popular with the queer community, which blends hyperpop and dance music, comes to the Atlantis.
- Sapphic Dance Party: a vibrant, inclusive nightlife and social event designed specifically for queer women, lesbians, bisexuals, trans individuals, and nonbinary folks, at Atlantis on Aug. 21.
- Jazz in the Garden: The most quintessential of D.C. activities returns Friday evenings through Aug. 14. This season’s theme, “American Sounds,” is a nod to the nation’s 250th anniversary. Tunes themes range from Appalachian and Americana to Creole jazz, Hill Country blues, contemporary jazz, and more. Tickets are available through a lottery system a week before each event.
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