Now, less than two months later, comes the Salute to Israel parade, in which gay marchers were banned from marching as a distinct group.

They also say that the city's effort to force them to accept the gay marchers violates their rights of free association.

The city tried to award this year's permit to a group that would admit the gay marchers, but eventually the courts backed the Hibernians.

Openly gay marchers are barred from both Brooklyn parades, said people close to the organizers who insisted on anonymity.

With a nod to religious belief, the courts have ruled that parade organizers can legally exclude gay marchers.

But on the narrow streets of South Boston, resentment toward the gay marchers is plain to see.

But the lawyers were in complete disagreement over what the gay marchers' presence would have meant.

In Ridgewood, about 400 gay marchers on Saturday protested the local school board's campaign against a curriculum teaching tolerance of homosexuals.

Long before gay marchers became the defining issue of the parade, the event had for years been a reliable font of controversy.

The maneuver backfired when the state-level group also decided to bar the gay marchers.