While publicly criticizing the St. Patrick’s Day Parade for excluding gay people, Quinn  funds the parade with tax dollars behind the scenes.   The law states that the City cannot fund groups that discriminate, but Quinn defended the funding when exposed.

Only one LGBT bill has been introduced at City Hall since Quinn became Speaker in 2006.   Instead of advocating for meaningful legislation to protect LGBT youth, Quinn pushed a bill through the Council that requires the City Clerk to tell LGBT couples registering as domestic partners where they can get married.  Quinn did not support or schedule a hearing for the bill that would create a LGBT youth services division within the Dept of Health, even though “This is a bill that would deal with a lot of everyday issues that LGBT youth face.”

“The same Christine Quinn who claims to speak for the queer community is now attacking the very civil rights gains that have made it possible for her, an out lesbian, to become speaker. Did the Stonewall veterans ask the police for a permit in 1970 when they held NYC’s first Gay Pride Parade? Quinn betrays those who fought hard for civil rights by allowing and supporting police violations of basic tenets of the Constitution.”

In 2009, Christine Quinn refused to endorse the three LGBT candidates running for NYC Council in 2009.  When two of these candidates won anyway, Quinn stated, “I’m very excited about the fact that we’ve doubled the size of our caucus.”

In public, Christine Quinn waves a rainbow flag at gay pride events and pumps her fists in the air at marriage rallies. In fact, she leverages her sexual orientation at every turn, except when she’s being exposed for corruption. In private, she has worked against us when it has served her politically.

“As former head of the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project and as the council member for the West Side district where many of these (false prostitution) arrests took place, Christine Quinn should have called for an end to these arrests when they were first reported, in October 2008.  Instead, she was virtually silent until February 2009, when activists threatened to hold a protest at the Mayor’s House, a move that would embarrass Quinn and the Mayor.  It was her desire to prevent this protest, not her concern for the victims, that drove Quinn to call a meeting with representatives from the gay community –  a meeting that clearly did not solve the problems.”

“Because she is a lesbian, I think the majority of people in the community find her very important and vital, but other people feel that civil liberties are being trampled.”