Mexican Catholics have their saints, Italian, German, and Ethiopian Catholics have theirs, and, outside of a few ethnic enclaves, St Patricks' Day has a whole lot more to do with green beer, corned beef, and the Notre Dame leprechaun than with the man who likely rescued Christianity for Ireland and Europe.
(Growing up under threat of being pinched if I didn't wear green for the occasion failed to add any gravity to the celebration.)
It's been "Irish Day" for a long, long, time and out west if your father consistently failed to show up for work he'd be assumed to be somewhere getting sloppy drunk.
(The image of a bearded, beaded, and spangled chorus line mincing down the parade route does not add to daddy's image or that of the LBGTEtc. faction it claims to celebrate.)
PS: May I note that the same people now decrying the erosion of a parade given us by troops of an occupying army probably go apoplectic every time Protestants march in Northern Ireland.
I think you're right - the homos are just the last shovelful of dirt on the grave.