‘I’ll be their ride or die’: State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton pledges her support to the LGBTQ+ community

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton has an unofficial mantra: show, don’t tell. And when an issue that affects those close to her arises in her home borough, the born-and-raised Staten Islander won’t hesitate to step in and lend some very public support.

Case in point: The freshman senator’s fight against the continued intentional exclusion of the LGBTQ+ community in the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Parade that has been ongoing for at least a decade.

Earlier this year, Scarcella-Spanton was present when the Pride Center of Staten Island and the Gay Officers Action League (G.O.A.L.) were violently turned away by the Richmond County St. Patrick’s Parade Committee at Blessed Sacrament R.C. Church in West Brighton while attempting to hand in their applications to march in Staten Island’s largest community event. While the applications were collected on parish property, Blessed Sacrament has no affiliation to the Parade Committee or its decisions.

She called out the discrimination during a pre-parade press conference, joined in on the unofficially named pro-LGBTQ+ “Rainbow Run” down Forest Avenue, and was the only public official to take part in a peaceful protest that stretched a long pride banner across the parade route ahead of the parade step-off. She also attended the Pride Center’s Crawl for All, held two weeks after the parade to drum up support for local businesses, where she reaffirmed her commitment to the LGBTQ+ community and its battle for inclusion.

“The Pride Center is a community organization that greatly benefits the LGBTQ+ community here on Staten Island, and they should be able to take part in any festivity they want to take part in,” Scarcella-Spanton told the Advance/SILive.com during a recent interview. “[The exclusion] is something that’s so hateful. It doesn’t represent the Staten Island community as a whole.

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