Massachusetts

Teamsters Local 25 won't march in parade if gay veterans group is banned

BOSTON — Teamsters Local 25 won’t march in parade if gay veterans group is banned

The Teamseters Local 25 Union says it will not march in Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade unless OUTVETS, a gay veterans group, is allowed to march.

“Our Women’s Committee has been proud to walk alongside our tractor trailer for the past several years, but if the organizers shut out certain organizations, the parade is no longer representative of the 11,000 members of Teamsters Local 25 and our families,” the union said in a statement. “I urge the committee to reconsider their decision to make the parade reflective of the city of Boston so that all can enjoy.”

OUTVETS said they were banned from marching in the parade because of the group’s rainbow logo.

Now several corporate sponsors are threatening to pull funding and top politicians said they will skip the parade if OUTVETS is excluded.

The group that organizes the parade, the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, will reopen the discussion and take another vote after the significant political and financial backlash came down over this week’s decision to exclude OUTVETS.

“This is disgraceful,” OUTVETS founder and executive director Bryan Bishop said.

He said he found out this week that organizers of Southie’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade denied his group of gay veterans from participating.

“This is a travesty,” he said. “We thought we had moved past this. We though Boston had moved beyond bigotry and discrimination.”

Bishop said he was urged to get his marching application in right away on Feb. 16, but then noticed a Feb. 15 deadline appeared on the South Boston Allied War Veteran’s Council website.

“Don’t tell me this is the reason to kick us out, that it was a deadline issue,” Bishop said. “I asked what is the reason and I was not given one.”

It turns out Bishop said a majority of the council, which has allowed OUTVETS to march in the parade since 2015, reportedly believed the OUTVETS’ logo was too sexually explicit.

“What we are being told is that the rainbow equates to sexuality, but I am trying to get my head around how this equates to sexuality and it doesn’t,” Bishop said.

Dan Magoon stepped down as the parade’s chief marshal after OUTVETS’ exclusion.

“For us to turn the clocks back is not the right thing to do,” he said.

The South Boston Stop & Shop pulled its financial backing as a parade sponsor. Anheuser-Busch reportedly is considering a similar move.

Politicians spoke in favor of OUTVETS as well, from Gov. Charlie Baker to Rep. Seth Moulton and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh.

“I’m not marching in the parade and unless this is overturned I’m asking other people to follow me,” Walsh said.

OUTVETS said it was "humbled and moved" with the outpouring of support after it was denied the right to march in the parade.