Today, March 15, 2015, is Boston’s annual St Patrick’s Day parade, and the big news is that an openly GLBT group will be allowed to be in the parade for the first time.

If you get on the internet there are stories of GLBT groups still fighting to be able to march, have recently been allowed to march, or are finally being allowed to march in their city’s St Patrick’s Day parade for the first time.

Most attention is on big cities and capital cities, but in all the news stories, there is one state capital that has been ignored. It might be because at the time it was considered to be a second rate capital, or because the media, both mainstream and GLBT seems hung up on certain cities while expressing no interest in others.

I know from my personal experience when, having been reprimanded for not following the suggestion back in 1999 to take down my list of GLBT people who had contributed to the world’s civilizations during Gay History Month, my attempts to get help from national GLBT organizations were turned down because Oklahoma City was not thought of as an important enough city that would give the various groups a big public relations boost if they took up my case. They had preferred, instead, a somewhat similar case in another, larger city where a win would be a big gold star.

Unfortunately, that case was lost because the “offending display” had been in a school hallway, while mine had been in my classroom. The judge in that case pointed out that a hall was a public place where the administration had control, while a classroom was under the control of the teacher. The judge’s ruling supported that of the two, mine would have been the stronger case.

The mistake made by the national groups was that they chose the case they pursued not based on the facts, but on the location.

This same attitude has kept GLBT history limited to what is advantageous to those who cover it.

So, as I seem to do every year around this time, I feel it my obligation to remind people of the real history of St Patrick Day parade inclusion.

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Members of the Pride committee constructed a float on a flat bed trailer that had an old fashioned train engine and two cars that could be modified for Christmas, Mardi Gras, and any other occasion that had a parade that we could march in to advertise the June Pride Festival and Parade.

We put lights, pine garlands, fake trees, and yards of white cloth to simulate snow on it to march in the OKC and Norman, Oklahoma Christmas Parades; Rainbow flags and equal rights signs for the Martin Luther King Day parade; and more lights and Pride flags for the Norman, Oklahoma, Mardi Gras Parade at the end of which we were asked to take part in the Oklahoma City St. Patrick’s Day parade.

We hadn’t even discussed being in that parade or filling out the necessary paperwork, and here we were getting invited while in other major cities like San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, New York City, and even Washington D.C. GLBT groups had not only been fighting to be in their parades, but were continually turned away.

On the morning of the parade the person who was in charge of the Pride Flags that would be on poles at the corners of the float was mysteriously absent and unreachable. So, as we brought the parade float from the storage yard in the next town where it was kept, and seeing rainbow flags flying over an outside booth at an Eastside flea market, we pulled in, bought four flag, and found ourselves explaining the significance of the flag to the biker salesmen who thought it ironic that as butch as they were they were flying the gayest flags ever, but who appreciated the Karma and continued to fly the flags each weekend at least up until I left the city 8 years later, and may still be.

At the appointed time the parade stepped off, and because the OKC parade began one-half hour earlier than the one in Chicago, even though the GLBT community there had finally won their court case and were going to be in their first parade, we beat them by not only not having to fight to be in our city’s parade, but we started walking 30 minutes before they did.

They got coverage for their accomplishment, just as Boston’s GLBT community is getting it this year, but the OKC GLBT community was ignored for its accomplishments by both the mainstream and GLBT media.

So every time, since 2003, when I read a posting on the internet, see a report on the television, or read a story in a hard copy publication celebrating each city that finally is growing up and allowing GLBT groups to march in its St Patrick Day parade, I’m glad they are catching up to the city consistently ignored for its trail blazing.

So, in light of the Boston GLBT Community’s finally getting to march in the St. Patrick’ Day parade, I would like to extend my welcome to them for joining those of us who have been there.