Sunday, March 2
1:30pm Parade Lines up @ 43rd Street and Skillman, Queens (directions below)
2:00pm Parade Kicks off
This is a shout out to all y’all radical queers! And to all you bad-assed hets who give a fuck about assembly and know you look good in pink!
The Radical Homosexual Agenda is going to celebrate our love of public gatherings and Irish peops at the St. Pat’s for All Parade! We’re also going to remind New Yorkers that this year’s grand marshal, Speaker Christine Quinn, stole our right to assemble just over a year ago.
Bring drums and noisemakers!
Accessorize in pink and black (with flourishes of green)!
Celebrate “51” (the magical number that makes any unpermitted procession illegal)!
Dance and strut down the streets to the frenzied beats of the Anti-Authoritarians, our queer drum corp!
Bikes welcome!
St. Pat’s for All Parade honors the diversity of all Irish and Irish American communities: teachers and insurrectionists, explorers and existentialists, queers and straights. Sounds like we’ll be in good company!
DIRECTIONS: #7 Subway to “40th Street/Lowery Street.” Walk east on Queens Boulevard for three blocks (street numbers go up). Left on 43rd St. Walk two blocks to Skillman.
For alternative routes: stpatsforall.com
***BACKGROUND***
While we are glad Speaker Quinn supports an inclusive St. Patrick’s Parade, we still are going to fight to reverse her January, 2007 rules attacking our freedom of assembly. Written by the NYPD and rubberstamped by Quinn, these rules state that it’s illegal for any “recognizable group” of 50 or more people to proceed through NYC without prior permission from the police. Quinn is attacking the very civil rights that got her, an out lesbian, the power she enjoys today.
These anti-assembly rules are just the latest crackdown on public gatherings. The NYPD has:
*trumped up charges for most of the 1,800 people arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention
*spent $1.75 million chasing bicyclists during the monthly Critical Mass rides
*arrested a procession of black teenagers on the way to a wake and trumped up charges of unlawful assembly
*and refused permit requests for last years Trans Day of Action.
It’s a shame Quinn won’t provide checks and balances we desperately need to stop all this police abuse. Quinn has got her pot of gold, but we need to remind her about the rainbow that led her to it.
It’s not too late for Quinn to follow the advice of the NYC Bar Association to repudiate this undemocratically written rule and conduct an open forum on how to best facilitate freedom of assembly in the city.
By Radical Homosexual Agenda wewantyou@riseup.net http://RadicalHomosexualAgenda.org