A local pro-life group that promotes adoption as an abortion alternative has been banned from today’s St. Patrick’s Day parade and prevented from displaying its pro-life banner, reading “Choose Life,” in the parade.

The Children First Foundation, a pro-adoption group that applied to march in the 2015 St. Patrick’s Day Parade, will not be marching today in the world’s oldest and largest parade because it tells LifeNews.com that it was blocked, stonewalled and officially rejected by the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee.

“Why? That is an important and serious question that the parade organizers should be asked to answer,” Dr. Elizabeth Rex, president of the pro-life group, told LifeNews today.

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Rex explained that, following a September press conference that introduced Cardinal Dolan as the 2015 Grand Marshal and explained the “change of policy,” the Wall Street Journal reported that a pro-life group would be able to march in the parade. Then, something changed.

“Dennis Saffran, in a well-documented article entitled “Parade Blarney” published in City Journal, the nation’s premier urban-policy magazine, (www.city-journal.org/2015/eon0313ds.html) chronicles the parade organizers’ obvious shenanigans that led to the “exclusion” of a pro-life banner while allowing the “inclusion” of a gay banner in the 2015 St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City,” Rex said.

“History will now report that in 2015 there was “no room in the parade” for an organization dedicated to helping pregnant women. Fortunately, the Church of the Holy Innocents, extended a warm welcome to The Children First Foundation and to their banned “Choose Life” banner at their historic church at 128 West 37th Street, close to the parade route between Broadway and 7th Avenue,” Rex said.

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights,has withdrawn his support for the event because pro-life groups have been excluded.

He said he reason for withdrawing his support “has to do with being betrayed by the parade committee. They not only told me one thing and did another, they decided to include a gay group that is neither Catholic nor Irish while stiffing pro-life Catholics. This is as stunning as it is indefensible.”

ACTION: Complain to the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade.