Church Picks Fight With Neighborhood, And Parishioners

A Chicago Catholic Church complains because the Gay Pride parade will go by during mass:

A Roman Catholic church on Chicago's North Side has reached out to its parishioners hoping they will help pressure the city into rescheduling or rerouting the Gay Pride Parade, which is slated to follow a new path directly past its doors next summer.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, one of the city's oldest Roman Catholic churches, reached out to its parishioners concerning the matter Thursday on its Facebook page. The church claims that the parade's new route and scheduled start time (10 a.m.) will force it to cancel morning masses due to the enormous crowds the parade typically attracts. Last year, an estimated 700,000 people attended the parade, according to an AP report.
The church, located between Halsted and Broadway on Belmont, is urging its parishioners to contact Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) to "let your voice be heard."
"Your help is needed," the church's Facebook status reads. "As many of you know, the Annual Pride Parade which is held on the last Sunday of June has had a route and time change. Unfortunately, the parade will now pass in front of church."

The alderman happens to be the first openly gay alderman in city history, and a member of the parish.  I haven't been to very many churches in Chicago, but I have been to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and it happened to be on gay pride weekend.  The parade wasn't going on when I went to mass at 9 AM, but I could see a giant rainbow flag on a building along the parade route about 200? feet from the church doors.  Of all the parishes in Chicago, this one seems like the least likely one to pick a fight with the gay community.  It is right in Boys Town, and just from my observation at that one mass, a sizable percentage of the folks attending were gay.  Maybe the parish is extremely financially sound (it is in a very nice neighborhood and had a very nice looking school beside the church), but I wouldn't think is would be extremely wise to alienate a sizable portion of the membership by pitching a fit and comparing the organizers of the parade to the KKK.  I can see trying to negotiate some arrangements, but a comparison to the Klan?  Maybe all of the parishioners are put off by the parade, who knows?  What I do know is that the last 20 years have definitely shown that the Catholic Church is not run by folks with excellent public relations skills, or even somewhat poor public relations skills.