In 2021, the folks running the city’s Gay Pride March celebrating people’s right to be as they are, issued a blatantly unfair ban against gay police officers marching while wearing their uniforms, in a fit of anti-cop discrimination. That noxious ban is still in effect and was reaffirmed by the parade’s organizers, Heritage of Pride.
Rightly making a stink are Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessie Tisch and the NYPD’s Gay Officers Action League, led by Detective Brian Downey.
So while we fight for the acceptance of the LGBTQ community as individuals, LGBTQ cops aren’t allowed?
Meanwhile, today’s parade, like all big public events in the big city, will be protected by countless uniformed and plainclothes officers, straight and gay, lining the route and keeping everyone safe. But no, no, no, a gay cop can’t be both proud to be a cop and be gay and march along?
Before the ban was imposed, cops marched for many years in the parade, proudly in their blues, showing that the NYPD is open to all and doesn’t discriminate, even if the Pride March does.
In a cop-out (pun intended) Heritage of Pride now says that it’s not the uniforms, but the guns, that they don’t like sidearms that cops carry. That’s a new one and the first time the organizers have pointed to the weaponry. And it’s also a trick, because a cop wearing a uniform has to wear the full uniform, which includes the utility belt with handcuffs and holstered pistol and pepper spray and baton and bulletproof vest and body-cam. And we thought their problem was that the blue clothes were the trigger (another pun intended). It’s all garbage.
It’s not too late before the parade steps off today. Lift the ban and welcome back the out and proud members of the NYPD.
