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NEW YORK, March 19, 2018  (LifeSiteNews) – The newly elected gay Prime Minister of Ireland marched at the head of New York City’s 257th St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was wedged between his homosexual partner, Matt Barrett, and pro-LGBT Democrat Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo as they paraded up 5th Avenue.

The Prime Minister also attended Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where he was greeted by New York’s Cardinal Dolan.  

It is unknown whether or not the openly gay head of state was offered and received communion.  

Among the 150,000 marchers were two groups carrying banners identifying themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, according to a New York Daily News report.  

Beginning in the 1990s, parade organizers were engaged in yearly fights over whether openly gay groups should be permitted to march under their own rainbow banners.  That all changed in 2015.

“I’m going to be able to march in the parade now with my partner which is something that is a sign of change and a sign of great diversity,” said Prime Minister Varadkar, “not just in Ireland but among the great community here as well.”

The day before the parade, the gay Prime Minister visited the Stonewall Memorial in New York.  The origin of the international gay rights movement is generally traced to the ‘Stonewall Riots’ of the late 1960’s.

While gay groups are now permitted to march in New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the Catholic League’s president, Bill Donohue, points out that, “No pro-life group has ever been allowed, though several applications have been made.”

“What was once a celebration of St. Patrick has now evolved into a celebration of the Irish,” said Donohue, observing the now near-complete secularization of the once Catholic feast day observance.  “St. Patrick is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of New York. On the morning of the march, there is a Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Until recently, few questioned the Catholicity of the parade.”

“This year’s parade is showing evidence of further secularization,” said Donohue in a statement.  “The Grand Marshal is Loretta Brennan Glucksman, a woman with strong Irish credentials, but no Catholic ones. Indeed, she is an ex-Catholic. ‘I don’t pray, I don’t go to church, and I don’t do any of those rituals that once were such a core part of my life,’ she said recently. So fed up with the Catholic Church is she that she took off her miraculous medal in the 1980s when she married Lew Glucksman.”