February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The controversy began last March when parade organizer John “Wacko” Hurley rejected an application to march from the Veterans for Peace, a group that is opposed to the war in Iraq. Two days before the parade, however, police officials decided to let the group march at the end of the parade. The Veterans Council, through its attorney Chester Darling, then filed suit in U.S. District Court in Boston.
City officials have so far declined to comment on the ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Collings, who said that the city violated the First Amendment rights of the parade organizers. Collings ruled that the peace group should have sought its own permit and then marched at least a mile behind the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
The magistrate awarded the Veterans Council $1 and attorney fees.
In 1995 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Veterans Council could exclude a group of homosexual activists from the St. Patrick’s Day parade, reversing a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Since then, Mayor Thomas Menino has refused to march in the parade, rankling some prominent Irish Americans, who point out that Menino continues to march in the controversial gay pride parade, which one recent year featured a float consisting of topless women simulating sex on a roll-away bed while men gyrating in jock straps tossed condoms at spectators and pedestrians.
Darling told the Echo last year that Menino and other city officials should show more respect toward the parade organizers and the U.S. Supreme Court. He told reporters after last week’s ruling that city leaders still don’t get the high court’s message.
“They just can’t read over there,” he said. “Keep you hands off our parade.”