This can't be
By adamg - Mon, 03/12/2007 - 7:53am.
Nobody disputes that New York has the largest St. Patrick's Day parade in the country. But who has the second largest? John Daley looks at claims from Holyoke and Savannah, Ga. that their parades are larger than ours.
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Now now. It's not the size
Now now. It's not the size of our parade, it's how we use it.
Of course
If they allowed gays to openly march, I bet we wouldn't have these kinds of problems.
Uh...how would that help
Uh...how would that help exactly? New York doesn't allow GLBTQ(etc) folk to march, and they're still #1.
What does NYC's population have to do with it?
We may not be able to out-parade New York, but permitting more marchers would move us up the ranks past some of these other cities.
not just gays are excluded
Remember this a few years ago?
Peaceful veterans banned from parade
I didn't say anything about
I didn't say anything about population. I'm saying that I'm not convinced that allowing GLBTQetc. marchers would be enough to move Boston up at all. I'm sure there are queer people in Boston's parade, just not as a queer group, which is really a shame. Anybody know if Savannah allows gay folks in their parade?
Maybe, maybe not
Hard to tell. I'm not sure that there would be that many GLBTQEIEIO groups that would just jump up and join if the restrictions were lifted. A lot of groups would probably still feel excluded, given the history of hatred expressed by the organizers.
But on the other hand, there are a lot of groups (not specifically GLBTQ groups) that won't participate in the parade because they don't want to be affiliated with a discriminatory parade. If it were open to all, the numbers could start climbing sharply a few years down the road.
Oh, since no one has mentioned it, there isn't just "the" parade in NYC. There's also the inclusive St. Pat's parade: http://www.stpatsforall.com/
We may be 4th
Looks like third place is taken too. Kansas City, Missouri makes the claim.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/legacies/MO/200003204.html
My guess is that Kansas City
My guess is that Kansas City counts the cattle they drive to the slaughterhouse during the parade to make corned beef.
Actually...
What impresses me about South Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade is it's intimate neighborhood feel which is such a great contrast to New York's mega-big-marching-for-the-whole-world-ness. The fact that the parade is relatively small is part of the charm of it.
On the other hand, not being from Southie I kind of feel like I'm crashing someone else's party when I go there.