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Adrian Walker

The St. Patrick’s Day parade is the embarrassment that never goes away

Thousands of people crammed South Boston’s streets for the 2009 parade. Dina Rudick/Globe Staff/File/Boston Globe

The perennial controversy over the St. Patrick’s Day Parade has subsided — but what about the damage?

Under fire from just about all of Boston, the powers that run the annual parade through South Boston have yielded to popular demand, and allowed a group of gay and lesbian military veterans, OUTVETS, to march in the parade next Sunday. The group, which had marched in the previous two parades, was voted out on Tuesday for reasons that defy logic, before being reinstated Friday night.

The conflict was both embarrassing and unsurprising. Misguided members of the Allied War Veterans, the group that runs the parade, have never gone out of their way to conceal their homophobia, and have a history of backing down only under pressure. Even as it has become ever less representative of the neighborhood whose values it claims to reflect, the group’s core has stubbornly clung to old bigoted thinking.

However, this may have been the last stand. In reaction to OUTVETS’ ouster from the parade, one elected official after another, including the mayor and the governor, began to bail on the parade. What began as a 9-4 vote against the marchers on Tuesday was unanimously reversed Friday night. That didn’t happen because a bunch of people found a conscience. That happened because of a lot of pressure, which isn’t going to go away.

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OUTVETS held a triumphant news conference on Sunday in the South End to celebrate being included, once and for all. It had the air of a victory lap, one that was well-deserved.

“We’ve not only served our country under fire, we’ve served our country under fire from our families, we’ve served under laws that tried to take away our rights, just because of who we love,” said Bryan Bishop, the group’s executive director. “We have the support of the world.”

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That this controversy erupted after the group had already marched — without incident — in the last two parades just goes to show how entrenched the resentment was among the parade’s organizers, who as a group reflect the views of an ever-shrinking part of the neighborhood.

Still, it’s depressing to think that the dispute over gays and lesbians in the parade still simmers at all, more than two decades after it first erupted. It has become the mini-war that resists resolution, all because of a core of haters who will seize on any pretext to refuse to yield to decency and common sense.

At the news conference Sunday, I spoke to the Rev. Alex Oneto. He is the pastor at St. Francis Cabrini Mission in Roxbury. He’s a Vietnam-era Navy veteran who marched with the original OUTVETS contingent two years ago. He said he was surprised by the fight last week.

“I was shocked because we marched for two years without any controversy,” he said. “The support from South Boston and the attendees who lined the parade route have been outstanding, to say the least.”

Now that the parade organizers have caved to public pressure, a movement is underway to overhaul the organization itself, to finally make it more representative of this century. State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry, who represents South Boston, had announced that she would not march, and is now undecided. Forry said she wanted to see tangible evidence that the controversy is finally dead forever. Her skepticism is understandable.

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Politicians often express frustration that Boston cannot outrun its decadeslong reputation for intolerance, and that battles like this continue to simmer. I’m well aware that the Allied War Veterans don’t reflect the South Boston, or the Boston, of 2017. They are an anachronism. Yet they continue to hold power, even if it is only the power to embarrass the rest of us. Why is it so hard to put these guys out of business?

As Bishop noted, the members of OUTVETS have defended our country against its foreign adversaries. This should be the last time they have to fight their neighbors for the right to be themselves.


Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at adrian.walker@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Adrian_Walker.