Mayors in Boston and New York are threatening to boycott St. Patrick's Day parades unless gay rights groups are allowed, but Chicago has no similar controversy.
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh says he's trying to broker a deal with his city's parade organizers to allow a group of gay military veterans to march. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says he will skip the parade because participants aren't allowed to carry banners identifying themselves as gay.
Tracy Baim, an authority on Chicago's gay rights movement, says gays first marched openly in the Chicago parade in the mid-1990s.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton says the mayor plans to march in the March 15 parade, as he has every year since he took office and "everyone is welcome to join."
