ANOTHER year, another petition to end the Orange Walk in Glasgow.
The sight of hundreds of marching bands will either raise your excited heartbeat to pound with the sound of the drums or raise your blood pressure to boiling point.
While those taking part will say they are celebrating Protestant history, the problem is that this one group's celebration is inextricably bound up with the denigration of another. While for many Orange Order members their involvement in the organisation comes from (questionable) good intentions, there are those for whom their motivation is more sinister.
The question for council bosses is one of balancing the right to freedom of assembly and of association with the rights of the rest of the city to go about their business without hindrance.
One of the most frustrating elements of the Orange walks - especially in the City Centre - is the forced compliance of the onlooker.
"You must never cross the walk." I can't remember the first time I heard this but it seemed like a sacrosanct commandment. On seeing people trying to cross the road in between marchers and being forcibly picked up and placed back on the pavement, I believed for a long time this was a real rule.
But wait a minute. Why must I halt my business to stand respectfully by as an Orange Walk goes by? It's madness. I can't think of any other public parade where members would lay hands on a pedestrian in such a way.
Driving through Cessnock last week and the bunting was something extraordinary. Fluttering gaily in zigzags from tenement to tenement, it seems festive - until you clock the specific colour scheme and the accompanying Red Hand of Ulster flags.
The Red Hand is an ancient symbol. It was once the logo of the Northern Irish tourist board and is fixed in stained glass in Belfast City Hall. However, it can also be a provocation with its links to loyalist iconography.
What right to this imposition to hang it on a building housing multiple homes?
Orangemen and women must become weary at being under constant attack in the media and on social media. But they must know their choice of pastime has the potential to cause deep offence.
The calls for their demise come ever more frequently. Despite an attempt at rebranding - in 2015 organising Orangefest at Glasgow Green as a family friendly day out - wider opinion is not growing in favour of the Orange Order.
No wonder. It hasn't managed to get the message out at a grassroots level.
This year, utter fury at a priest attacked outside his Glasgow church as the Orange march went through the East End.
Last year the first prize in a fancy dress competition organised by Airdrie-based Whinhall True Blues Flute Band and held in an Orange Hall went to a man and woman dressed as Adolf Hitler and wife Eva Braun.
In case you've forgotten, the couple were joined by two children dressed in rags with a yellow Star of David such as that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis.
We're not sectarian but...
Glasgow City Council is meeting to discuss the future of the marches and James Dornan MSP is pushing for their end.
Much has been done to rebrand Glasgow as an inclusive city. A ban is illiberal but steps must be taken to minimise the impact of the marches on the wider public. At least until they inevitably fizzle out of their own accord.
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