New York’s Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) has issued a news release pledging to produce “one of the largest acts of civil disobedience the city has ever seen” on March 16, the day of this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City. ILGO plans to “Rock the Blocks” by staging protesters throughout the parade route and, following tradition, it plans to bust the parade and passively resist arrest.
William Donohue of the Catholic League issued the following remarks regarding this scenario:
“Year after year ILGO protesters who violate the law are arrested and then released without prosecution. This year we would like to see the full force of the law applied to anyone who engages in illegal activity. There is no problem with any protest that does not break the law, but when there is an organized attempt to violate the law, that is not something the authorities can dismiss. We call on Mayor Giuliani to see to it that ILGO’s practice of law breaking with impunity ends in 1996.”
The Catholic League is the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization. It defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation and discrimination.
