Newyork

A New, Gay-Friendly St. Patrick’s Day Parade Is Coming to Staten Island

This year, for the first time, Staten Island will host a St. Patrick’s Day parade that allows L.G.B.T.Q. delegations to participate, a move that brings to a close a yearslong dispute between gay groups and parade organizers across the city over who can join in public celebrations of the patron saint of both Ireland and Catholic New York.

The original Staten Island parade has been the last holdout in a culture-war conflict that, for many New Yorkers, has felt settled for a decade.

The ban on L.G.B.T.Q. groups in the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan was lifted in 2014. But organizers of the parade on Staten Island have insisted that gay groups do not belong at an event for a Catholic saint. That led to years of bitter debates and boycotts.

To resolve that discord, Mayor Eric Adams’s office on Thursday announced that the city’s least populous and most conservative borough would now be home two St. Patrick’s Day parades: the existing parade, held on March 2, and a new parade open to L.G.B.T.Q. groups that will be held on March 17.

Kayla Mamelak, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said the Adams administration believed that “celebrations in our city should be welcoming and inclusive.”

Ms. Mamelak said the new parade would be organized by the Staten Island Business Outreach Center, a nonprofit community development organization. Mr. Adams will attend the new St. Patrick’s Day parade, his office said.

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