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Pride and Prejudice: Legalizing Compulsory Heterosexuality in New York's Annual St. Patrick's Day Parades

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 08:44 authored by Sally Munt, Katherine O'Donnell
This article discusses the successful legal exclusion of Irish lesbians and gays from the St. Patrick's Day parade in New York and explores the ideologies of nation-space and public space that underpin this exclusion. It argues that the progression through urban space of the marches enforces compulsory heterosexuality, through actual and semiotic exclusion. Irish American nationalism can be read as illustrative of the heterosexualization of nationalism. It was the unquestioned assumption that being homosexual is antithetical to being Irish that provided the fundamental premise from which it was logically and successfully argued in U.S. courts: that the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization is a violent, obscene enemy bent on the destruction of Irish ethnicity and Irish communities. By contrast, the article holds up the parades in Cork and Dublin as designated inclusive and multicultural events, the nation-space of the Irish Republic economically liberated and wishing to communicate modernity to its citizens.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Space and Culture

ISSN

1206-3312

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Issue

1

Volume

10

Page range

94-114

Department affiliated with

  • Media and Film Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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