In the United States, Irish Americans relish in celebrating St. Patrick. Kelly green is the choice color of the day, albeit in clothing, traffic stripes, lights or green liquids.

In Seattle, the city paints its St. Patrick's Day Parade route traffic stripes green, while in the City of Chicago the Chicago River is dyed green, as is the Chadakoin River in Jamestown, NY, and the main canal in Indianapolis. Various fountains around the country are dyed green including: the North Fountain at the White House in Washington, DC; the downtown fountains in Savannah, Georgia; and the Five Points Fountain in Columbia South Carolina. Other cites celebrate the Irish saint differently: in honor of St. Patrick, the patron saint of engineers, the St. Pat's Board Alumni at the Missouri University of Science & Technology paints Pine Street green in Rolla, Missouri; while in Texas the Dallas skyline is lit up in green; and in New York City the famed Empire State Building is bathed in green lighting. Syracuse, New York paints a shamrock in the intersection beneath the "Green-on-Top" traffic light on Tipperary Hill in the Irish section of town. The Syracuse traffic signal is the only one-of-a-kind "Red-on-Bottom" stop-and-go light remaining in the United States.

Annual parades wind down streets cities around the United States some dating from the Colonia era: New York (1762); and Philadelphia (1771). Some of the larger 19th century parades include: New Orleans (1809); Savannah (1824); Milwaukee and Chicago (1843); St. Paul (1851); San Francisco (1852); Atlanta (1858) and Denver (1889). Smaller community parades established in the 20th century include: South Boston - 35,200 (1901); Rolla, Missouri - 19,559 (1909); Bay City, Michigan - 34,962 (1954); Pearl River, New York - 15,876 (1968); Norfolk, Virginia - 242,803 (1968); Cedar Rapids, Iowa - 126,326 (1974); Peoria, Illinois - 115,007 (1980); and New London, Wisconsin - 7,395 (1984). New St. Patrick's Day parades are still being formed. Tallahassee, Florida's first St. Paddy's Day parade stepped off in 2010.

Several communities are vying for the honors of having the shortest St. Patrick's Day Parade: Hot Springs, Arkansas (98 feet); Boulder, Colorado (two blocks); Maryville, Missouri (half a block); Pendleton, Oregon (80 feet); and the Third Ward in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (280 steps). While Enterprise, Alabama holds the title for the smallest St. Patrick's Day parade --where one person, of Irish descent, dressed in green, carries an Irish flag for one block at high noon on March 17.

THE BEER BATTLES

Green beer is also a favorite St. Patrick's Day beverage. Students at Miami (Ohio) University celebrate St. Patrick with Green Beer Day. For those Catholics who have given up beer for Lent, they are given a dispensation on March 17 to indulge in their favorite green brew.
A favored Irish beer is Guinness, a dry dark stout, dating back to 1759, and originally brewed only in Dublin. For years Guinness, along with Heineken, a Dutch pale lager, first brewed brew in 1873, helped sponsor the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade, as did Samuel Adams beer, a johnny-come-lately (1984) local brew in Boston which supported the South Boston parade.

Samuel Adams was forced to bow out this of year's Boston parade following threats by Club Cafe, a Boston tavern which caters to the LGBT community. The gay bar announced on its Facebook page that it would stop serving Sam Adams beer unless the Boston Beer Company withdrew from supporting the St. Patrick's Day parade. The Boston parade holds tightly to its hard and fast rule that no gays may self-identify in its South Boston march.

The Boston parade is unique as it is a combination of celebrating the Irish saint and the evacuation of the British from Boston on March 17, 1776, following the 10 month, three week and six day Siege of Boston which started at the opening volley of the Revolutionary War. Therefore the Boston parade organizers are the members of the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council -- a group private citizens selected from a variety of Boston veterans' groups -- so the parade has a definite military flavor to it with an Irish panache. History shows Boston Catholics have celebrated St. Patrick's feast day since 1737 with music and festive revelry.

The St. Patrick's Day connection is almost coincidental except for the fact that on March 17, 1776, orders were given that if a person wanted to pass through the Continental Army lines, the password of the day was "St. Patrick". So the official parade, which was started in 1901 in South Boston, is primarily to honor the day that the Continental Army, lead by George Washington, succeeded in causing British troops to end their occupation of Boston and leave the growing beleaguered town.

The first Evacuation Day-St. Patrick's Day Parade, started by the City of Boston, was held in celebration of the 125th anniversary in which General Washington and his Continental Army forced the Red Coats to end the Siege of Boston. The Veterans Council has been organizing the event since 1947.

In 1992, the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston (GLIB) sought to march under its own banner in the Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade, as a participating gay group, and were told "no." So they sued the City of Boston, the Veterans Council, and then Mayor Ray Flynn to demand their rights to flaunt their sexual orientation.

The group claimed to be "proud" of both their sexual orientation and their Irish ancestral heritage and as such should be allowed full inclusion as fully-fledged parade participants. A restraining order was issued by Judge Hiller Zobel of the Superior Court of Massachusetts allowing the GLIB to march. The lawsuit wound its way up to the US Supreme Court where they lost when the top court of the land ruled that private organizations have the right to determine their membership.

The Boston Globe reported that the 1992 parade as "a five-mile gauntlet of hostility that sometimes threatened to erupt into wide-scale violence," and that it turned into "[a]n ugly spectacle on a day meant for celebration."
The GLIB won the right to march in 1993 again through a court order, but that same court ordered that parade organizers had a right to keep out the Ku Klux Klan. By then the gays had won a permanent injunction against the parade with intensions of marching annually.

The Veteran Council appealed the injunction and lost in Massachusetts Supreme Court where Justice J. Harold Flannery wrote: "History does not record that St. Patrick limited his ministry to heterosexuals or that General Washington's soldiers were all straight. Inclusiveness should be the hallmark of the parade."

The Veterans Council cancelled the 1994 parade to protect the integrity of the parade and keep the GLIB from marching as the First Amendment Freedom of Speech case worked its way up the US Supreme Court. In 1995, the US Supreme Court's landmark ruling came down in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston. That decision specifically allowed private groups, such as the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, the freedom to determine what message their activities convey to the wider public.

Since the Boston parade organizers won in the US Supreme Court they are now allowed -- as a private organization -- to determine who their marching participants will be. Basically, the Boston parade is a veterans celebration with a St. Patrick's Day flair.

GLIB has not marched since, but that hasn't stopped them from trying. The Boston gay community has used intimidation, threats and bullying to force the Boston beer company to bow out of the parade or face loss of revenue.

SAMUEL ADAMS CAPITULATES

"The fight to make the parade inclusive for everyone in Boston, including gay rights groups, has been ongoing since 1995. It was then that a Supreme Court Ruling sided with the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council -- the parade's organizers -- allowing them to exclude gays, lesbians, and any other group that doesn't conform to their strict parade guidelines," Club Cafe posted on its Facebook page. "Club Cafe is very disappointed that Sam Adams does not understand that the organizers of the St. Patrick's Day Parade continue to demonstrate that they do not respect LGBT Irish Americans by excluding LGBT members of this community from openly marching in the St. Patrick's Day Parade."

Club Cafe then explained that it was pulling the Samuel Adams brew from its gay bar until the Boston brewery backed out of sponsoring the parade or until South Boston Allied War Veterans Council agreed to allow people from the gay community to openly march in the Boston parade.

"We have been participating in the South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade for nearly a decade and have also supported the St. Patrick's Day breakfast year after year. We've done so because of the rich history of the event and to support veterans who have done so much for this country," a Samuel Adams news release stated. "We were hopeful that both sides of this issue would be able to come to an agreement that would allow everyone, regardless of orientation, to participate in the parade. But given the current status of the negotiations, we realize this may not be possible ... therefore we will not participate in this year's parade."

Both the Boston and New York St. Patrick's Day marches are open to anyone as a part of the greater whole: gay or straight ... Catholic or Protestant ... Evangelical or Pentecostal ... black, white or Hispanic ... male, female or transgendered ... Christian, Jew, Buddhist or "none" ... Democrat, Republican or Independent ... activity military, reservists or veterans ... conservative, middle-of-the-road or liberal ... all are welcome to be a part of a larger group -- marching bands, police units, Irish dancers, or fire brigades. The goal is to blend in and not stand out. The Gay Rights movement wants to stand out and take the focus off of the stated purposes of themed parades and other events and center it on themselves.

"We invite all to join us to celebrate this historic event, but we must maintain our guidelines to insure the enjoyment and public safety of our spectators," the Veterans Council stated.
Seeing the handwriting on the wall, and to protect its bottomline, Heinekens quickly withdrew its support of the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade. Heinekens folded even before it was directly threatened with sanctions. In a simple statement released to CNBC, Heinekens said: "We believe in equality for all. We are no longer a sponsor of Monday's (St. Patrick's Day) parade."

Guinness was not so lucky . That beer company was coerced in the same way Samuel Adams was in Boston. Just hours before the 2014 New York St. Patrick's Day Parade was to step off, the beer company suddenly dropped its support of the parade when Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay liberation bar, threatened to stop selling the Irish brew if the brewery sponsored the parade. The boycott would impact Guinness' financial bottomline.

GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) also threatened to hold an anti-Guinness event on St. Patrick's Day if the Irish beer company did not follow in the tracks of the Dutch beer maker Heineken, which did pull its tap on the New York parade and Samuel Adams in Boston which was the first iconic brewery to capitulate to the mounting pressure from gay bullying threats and tactics.

"Guinness has a strong history of supporting diversity and being an advocate for equality for all," the Irish brewer said in a statement announcing it decision to fold to the pressure. "We were hopeful that the policy of exclusion would be reversed for this year's parade. As this has not come to pass, Guinness has withdrawn its participation ..."
One other major corporate sponsor of the New York parade, Ford Motor Company, refused to be intimidated and did not kowtow to gay bullying and threats.

"No one person, group or event reflects Ford's views on every issue. Ford is involved in a wide range of events and organizations in communities across the country and around the world, including long-standing participation in this parade," the car company said in a statement supporting the New York parade. "What we can tell you is that Ford is proud of its inclusive policies. Every member of the Ford team is valued, and we provide employee benefits regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation."

"I want to commend Guinness, Sam Adams and Heineken for taking a stand on behalf of the LGBT community who should be able to march openly and proudly in the St. Patrick's Day Parade," New York City Council Speaker (Chairman) Melissa Mark-Viverito said in a statement.

GLAAD also championed the three beer brewers for withdrawing from the two parades but criticized Ford for not following suit.
"Heineken sent the right message to LGBT youth, customers and employees who simply want to be part of the celebration," GLAAD's President Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. "... Guinness sent a strong message to its customers and employees; discrimination should never be celebrated. Ford Motors remains the last major American corporation to continue its support of the discriminatory New York City parade."

The gay rights crowd is not sitting still for Ford's refusal to kowtow.

"Ford will remain on our LGBT friendly list -- at least for now," blogs Richard Read on the Gaywheels website, stating that "Ford continues support of homophobic St. Patrick's Day Parade" theorizing that Ford would lose some points with the Human Rights Campaign's LGBT Index for its continued funding of this year's New York St. Patrick's Day Parade."
The HRC is the largest gay rights advocacy group in America whose reason for being is: "For the promotion of the social welfare of the gay and lesbian community by drafting, supporting and influencing legislation and policy at the federal, state and local level."
"Let's hope that someone on Ford's corporate sponsorship team realized the error of the automaker's ways before next March rolls around," Read blogged.

THE NEW YORK PARADE CAPITULATES

Following the loss of two major corporate sponsors and the added threat of NBC refusing to telecast the 2015 parade if the St. Patrick's Parade Committee didn't roll over and violate its own rules and guidelines to let LGBT groups march under their own banner, the parade surrendered. The bullying became too great and it was announced in early September that the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade would lower its standards and allow one gay group to march next year, that being OUT@NBCUniversal -- a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender support group with ties to NBC.

The in-your-face bullying, threats and coercion worked. The New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade, a family-friendly parade celebrating an ancient Irish saint and the city's Irish Catholic heritage, was brought to its knees.

Shock waves coursed through the American Catholic Church and the conservative Catholic media went into hyper drive, but the LGBT crowd was not satisfied with a crack in the armor: they want the entire door thrown open and no holds barred to letting them march when they and where they want and how they want.

"We welcome this small victory ... this cracking of the veneer of hate... but our call remains the same -- the parade must be open to Irish LGBT groups, not 'in subsequent years' but now!" proclaimed the gay rights group Irish Queers. "It [this small victory] allows NBC's gay employees to march, but embarrassingly has not ended the exclusion of Irish LGBT groups."

"We want to march up Fifth Avenue as an Irish diaspora that has finally joined Ireland in rejecting religion-fueled bigotry," the Lavender and Green Alliance said. "Let Irish queer groups finally take our place in the parade."

The Irish Queers are not beyond bringing the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade back to court to force their way in.

For many years, the Irish Catholic fraternal organization Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), originally founded in 1836, organized the St. Patrick's Day Parade and kept a tight lid on gay involvement.

In 1995, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization sued the Ancient Order of Hibernians demanding the right to march in the parade. Manhattan Federal District Court Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy, drawing upon the earlier US. Supreme Court ruling about Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade, ruled that it was unconstitutional for New York City officials to force the Hibernians, a Roman Catholic fraternal order, to include the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization in their St. Patrick's Day Parade lineup.

At the time, The New York Times reported: "For their part, gay and lesbian organizations in New York were disappointed and angered by the Supreme Court decision ..."
However, as a result of the lawsuit, the Hibernians stepped back from organizing the New York parade, fearing additional lawsuits would bankrupt them and prevent them from fulfilling their charitable goals. A new non-profit organization was formed "The New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade, Inc." to organize the parade. The prohibition on gay participation remained intact.

"Although there have been several court cases (including the crucial case where the AOH denied the parade is a celebration of Irishness, claiming instead that it's a religious procession with a right to discriminate) the parade involves so many players and acts of discrimination that we believe there may be further grounds for legal action," Irish Queers explains on its website. "That said, Irish Queers has long stated that no amount of court sanctioning or city sponsorship constitutes a 'right' to enact blatant discrimination, bigotry and hate."

Gay rights activists, in describing the Christian pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-family movement, usually use negative words and inflammatory phrases in their war of words rhetoric such as: "blatant discrimination, bigotry and hate" ... prejudiced ... "religion-fueled bigotry" ... homophobic ... anti-gay ... "veneer of hate" .... hate monger ... "hate crimes" ...

Both the New York and Boston parades have tried to keep politics out of the mix. Gays are not the only group nixed. Pro-life and pro-marriage groups also were told they cannot march as an entity. Any subgroup with a separate or political agenda are barred from marching, although many of their own members march as a part the whole parade. Even the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights didn't separately march in New York until 1993. The Catholic League is a Catholic religious civil rights organization combating anti-Catholic sentiment, hostility and bullying. However, the Catholic League has pulled out of the 2015 parade because while the New York Parade opened its doors to the pro-gay group it kept them closed a pro-life group.

"Under the direction of [Parade Committee Vice Chairman John] Lahey, who has effectively taken over control of the parade, there is no room for a pro-life Catholic group in 2015, but there is room for a non-Irish, non-Catholic, gay group," Catholic League President Bill Donohue posted on his website. "But the worst is yet to come."

THE CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK

To add insult to injury, the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade announced that the 2015 grand marshal would be none other than His Eminence Timothy Michael Dolan, the eighth cardinal of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

The Cardinal threw Catholic moral teaching and tradition to the wind when he surrendered to LGBT pressure tactics. The Associated Press describes him as "a proud, ebullient Irish-American." Cardinal Dolan is proud as a peacock at not only at being named the 2015 Grand Marshal, but also that the Parade has been opened up to gays. The AP quoted him as saying: "I have no trouble with the decision at all. I think it is a wise one."

The Cardinal is infamous for allowing the Gay Pride agenda to run rampant in his Archdiocese.

Silky Johnson, another frequent VOL commenter, said of the New York cardinal: "Most of us have known that Dolan is a raging liberal in fancy clothes ever since he was a priest. This guy is a turkey who should never have been made a bishop, much less a cardinal. I have friends who are priests in NYC and they say they have never met anyone who is as much of a political animal as he is. That isn't a compliment."

Cardinal Dolan proves the point of being a proud political party animal when he hobnobs with retired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael G. Mullen (2009), husband and wife political team --Democratic Party political commentator James Carville and Republican Party political consultant Mary Matalin (2010); American business magnate Stephen A. Schwarzman (2011); President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney (2012); and political satirist Stephen T. Colbert (2013) at the $25,000-a-table Al Smith Dinners. This year's guest is to be CBS This Morning co-anchor Charlie Rose for the Oct. 1 gala white-tie affair.

News outlets report that Cardinal Dolan, who has 360 churches in his New York City-based archdiocese, is eyeing to pare them down to about 300 through shuttering them, merging them, or selling them off to help replenish the Archdiocesan thin coffers and to help pay for a $200 million renovation of St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is on the St. Patrick's Day parade's Fifth Avenue route. His cozying up with the LGBT crowd is not keeping his churches open and his collection plates filled.

THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY

The Episcopal Church, too, has been bullied by the various gay rights groups seeking "All the Sacraments for All the Baptized" and championing the full inclusion cry the loudest is Integrity USA, a behind-the-scenes Episcopal grassroots gay rights lobby.

Through the years by patiently biding their time, establishing inclusive Integrity and Believe Out Loud parishes, employing active networking, electing liberal bishops and gay-friendly General Convention deputies, passing successful General Convention legislation and generally wearing down resistance, the gay rights movement has gotten a solid foothold in The Episcopal Church where one by one traditional and family values have been defeated and trampled underfoot. Women's Ordination, which is still contested in some circles, is tame compared to ordination of transgendered priests and priestesses, lesbian clergy and divorcing gay bishops.

Making The Episcopal Church gay-friendly and all inclusive has not engendered rank and file Episcopalians to the church. The fallout has been reflected in the pews, and like the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, The Episcopal Church is faced with closing churches, merging congregations, and selling off buildings to pay for litigation to take those buildings away from departing Episcopalians.

Presiding Bully Katharine Jefferts Schori, a strong proponent of the gay agenda, is a master at using intimidation to get her way and browbeat bishops, in particular those who were supportive of departing dioceses and became friends-of-the-court by signing Amicus Curiae briefs. She is continuing to use the courts to wrestle church property away from departing congregations, and tie them up in litigation for years while draining their resources from mission and the spread of the Gospel. She has strengthened and put teeth into Title IV to where Episcopal clergy tremble in fear, and with the sweep of a pen more than 700 Episcopal clergy -- deacons, priest and bishops alike -- have been deposed and forbidden from canonically exercising their ministries in The Episcopal Church.

BISHOP VICKY GENE ROBINSON

Perhaps the biggest, loudest, and in-your-face radical out-of-the-closet gay-lesbian-bisexual- transgendered-intersexed-queer voice in The Episcopal Church is the retired IX Bishop of New Hampshire Vicky Gene Robinson.

His very consecration as bishop in 2004 set into motion a chain reaction within The Episcopal Church, and the wider Anglican Communion, which has left the very fabric of Anglicanism rent asunder. But does he care? NO! He is gay and that fact is more important than anything else. He has gained celebrity status for his over-the-top behavior. He has been feted, honored, sought, written about, and has become a documentary film star -- all in the name of promoting the gay agenda which trumps everything else he does. In the end, it has cost him his "gay marriage."

Earlier this year in an interview with On Top magazine, an LGBT news and entertaining publication, the infamous bishop notoriously said: "Gay is not something we do. It's something we are. I'm not just gay when I'm making love to my husband. I'm gay all the time. I'm gay right this minute talking to you, and it ... affects how I relate to the world, how I relate to people."

Being gay is the defining aspect of who Bishop Robertson is. He is not just the "retired" Bishop of New Hampshire, he is the "gay" retired Bishop of New Hampshire, with gay being the most important modifier of his personhood, his priesthood and his episcopal ministry.

This is the problem facing the New York St. Patrick's Day Parade. Those gays who identify as Irish-Americans or Irish Catholics or New York police and firemen are not content to merely participate in the parade because they are Irish-Americans, Irish Catholics, or New York police and firemen; they want to march in the parade as GAY Irish-Americans, GAY Irish Catholics, and GAY police officers or GAY fire fighters. Their homosexual orientation overshadows the rest of their being and they want everyone else to know it, accept it, and make way for them to flaunt it and they use bullying, intimidation, coercion, scare tactics and threats to get their narrow laser-focused way.

"LGBTQ FOLKS SCARE ME"

Louie Clay (nee Louie Crew), a six time delegate to the Episcopal General Convention and the founder of Integrity, recently e-mailed Andrew Gerns, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Easton, Pennsylvania and blogger at Episcopal Cafe, saying that sometimes the "LGBTQ folks scare me."
CREW: "LGBTQ folks scare me when we take our sexual orientation too seriously. A priest recently told me, 'Homosexuality is the litmus test of spirituality in the church today"'.
Crew, who has been in a long time gay partnered relationship with Ernest Clay, was recently legally "married" to his partner when same-sex marriage became legal in New Jersey. Louie Crew now goes by the name "Louie Clay" replied: "Oh no."
PRIEST: "Why not!?"
CREW: "Because thousands of us who pass that test, who treat LGBTQ neighbors lovingly, still fail many other important tests."
PRIEST: "Such as?!"
CREW: "A fair distribution of the world's wealth. Gender justice. Racial justice. A tangible concern for the victims of U.S. aggression in ... Those who tell me that I am okay do not minister the gospel, but usurp it, privatize it ... If I stress only that people ought to accept me and others like me, I miss the point of spirituality anyway, regardless of the minority with which I identify at the moment. God accepts us: that's absolutely enough. God calls us to accept others, not to seek acceptance. They are our blood kin, or we don't really believe in Eucharist ..."
Louie Clay's sudden epiphany that there is more to the church than gay sex and that "sexuality equals spirituality" will not undo the fact that he singlehandedly started a crusade for homosexuality that has engulfed the church and for the past forty years has defined it. He will be remembered as the author of pansexuality and, at the end, the inevitable death of the Episcopal Church he has served.

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline