Irish, Gays, Mayor Get in Step for St. Patrick’s March in N.Y.

Charges of discrimination that threatened to keep the mayor from this year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade were settled Thursday when a group of Irish homosexuals agreed to march with another contingent.

Members of one division of the Manhattan chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the group that runs the parade, invited the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization to join them in Saturday’s march along 5th Avenue.

Mayor David N. Dinkins, who earlier this week suggested that he might boycott the parade if the homosexuals were not allowed to participate, said he would march with the gay group and the division, giving up his traditional spot at the head of the parade.

Last week, parade officials had barred the gay group and a contingent of six children in wheelchairs, citing city constraints on the parade’s already lengthy duration. They said the groups would be added to the end of a waiting list that contained about 40 groups.

The committee on Sunday rejected Dinkins’ offer to add one hour to the parade. Organizers said instead the groups could march if they were invited by another contingent and promised not to carry any banners of their own.

That decision was accepted by the handicapped children, but rejected initially by the gay group as being homophobic.

Paul O’Dwyer, a spokesman for the 135-member gay group, said Thursday the deal was later accepted in the spirit of compromise.