BOSTON (AP) -- Boston's Irish got a late start on St. Patrick's Day on Sunday with a parade delayed two weeks by a blizzard and then heckled by some who opposed a court ruling allowing a gay-pride group to take part. Police estimated that 175,000 to 200,000 people turned out, less than half what the crowd has numbered in past years. Some said bad weather Sunday, the delay and the gay-pride controversy hurt this year's celebration. "It's taken a lot of the oomph out of it," said Kevin Chapman, the doorman at the Quiet Man Pub, located at the start of the parade route. Police reported no arrests as the parade wound through the Irish enclave of South Boston. The Irish American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Pride Group of Boston, taking part in the parade for the second consecutive year, marched under a shamrock-bedecked banner. More than a dozen police in riot gear escorted the group, and sharpshooters with rifles stood on rooftops. Some spectators heckled, and a teen-age boy threw coffee into the face of one marcher, who was uninjured. Others hurled stink and smoke bombs along the parade route. The parade organizers, the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, had fought against allowing the gay group to march. Away from the controversy, the parade went on as usual. Politicians sporting green carnations pressed the flesh, marching bands in blue and gold played, and the Boston Police Gaelic Column, blowing bagpipes and dressed in kilts, shivered against the chill. PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten (AP) -- The government has decided not to issue a permit for a Caribbean gay pageant after religious leaders threatened to "do whatever is necessary" to stop the show. Lt. Gov. Russell Voges, in an interview late Friday, denied he was bowing to the pressures of the church leaders, and said he was simply abiding by the island's decency code. The first Caribbean "Gay of Gays" pageant had been scheduled for April 3 on the resort island, where homsexuality is not openly expressed except in several bars and on nude beaches. Contestants from 11 Caribbean countries had already confirmed their participation in the event. NEW YORK (AP) -- Will Parker, a baritone whose collection of poems and lyrics about AIDS was turned into the "AIDS Quilt Songbook," died Monday. He was 49. The cause of death was complications from AIDS, said his manager, Philip Caggiano. Parker sang opera in Austria, the Netherlands and throughout the United States in the 1980s. He premiered Ned Rorem's "Santa Fe Songs" in 1980. In 1991, he began gathering poems and lyrics by or about people with AIDS. The works were turned into songs by American composers. Parker and fellow baritones Kurt Ollmann, William Sharp and Sanford Sylvan performed the premiere of the "AIDS Quilt Songbook" on June 4, 1992, at Alice Tully Hall. Parker's final performance of the "AIDS Quilt Songbook" was Dec. 1 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The collection is to be released by Nightingale Records. Parker, a native of Butler, Pa., sang in the Army Chorus through 1970. On on the day of his Army discharge, he won the Baltimore Opera Competition. He went on to win opera contests in Europe and the United States. Over the last decade, he has taught at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, and at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. He is survived by his sister, Amy Doty of Rochester, and his brother, John Edward Parker of Del Mar, Calif. PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- AIDS-infected businessman Edward Savitz, a week away from trial on charges he paid teen-age boys for sex, has died. He was 51. As his health failed, Savitz was transferred from jail this month to a hospice, where he died Saturday morning -- one year and two days after his initial arrest. His lawyer, Barnaby Wittels, said Sunday his client was as good as guilty to the media, though he never had his day in court. "I hope that in heaven he will be judged more accurately than he was on earth," Wittels said. Savitz, who police said was known to neighborhood children as "Uncle Ed" or "Uncle Eddie," was charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual abuse of children, indecent assault and corrupting the morals of a minor. Trial was to have begun April 5. Savitz could have been sentenced to 54 years in prison if convicted of all charges. Wittels said he would file a petition today to have the case officially closed. Bill Davol, a spokesman for the District Attorney's Office, had no immediate comment on Savitz's death. Authorities believe Savitz paid hundreds of young boys for their dirty socks and undergarments, their feces, and sometimes for sex. Savitz was arrested March 25, 1992, on complaints involving two teen-agers. He was released when his brother posted 10 percent of his $3 million bail, but he was arrested the next day and bail was raised to $20 million after complaints involving two more teen-agers were filed. Police found 5,000 photographs of boys at Savitz's apartment and a rented storage center nearby, and AIDS hot lines were flooded with calls after his photo was released. A private funeral and burial were held Sunday. WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Armed Services Committee chairman Monday suggested a compromise to the volatile issue of ending the ban on gays in the military as the Senate opened hearings on President Clinton's plan to lift the prohibition. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., said the temporary policy prohibiting recruiters from asking enlistees about their sexual orientation may be a permanent alternative to lifting the ban outright. He said the existing, six-month compromise, in which recruits may not be asked about their sexual orientation, "is rather a good place to be. ... It may be a pretty good place to end up." An analyst with the Congressional Research Service told the committee in a packed hearing room that the ban prevents the armed services from determining whether the presence of gays is disruptive and whether the policy should continue. The sessions marked the first time since Anita Hill accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment that lawmakers were forced to discuss sexual practices. "The extent to which open homosexuality in the ranks would prove sufficiently disruptive to justify continued exclusion of homosexuals is not known," said David Burrelli of the Congressional Research Service. "The existence of the exclusion policy itself prevents empirical research from discovering whether or not open homosexuality would, in fact, prove to be disruptive," he said. Burrelli discussed the historic background of homosexuality, the military's 50-year-old ban and the issues in the current debate. "The issue ... is whether such individuals should serve 'in the closet' or 'out,"' he said in testimony that reiterated recent questions but provided little in the way of answers. At the White House, Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said Clinton did not want to prejudge the results of a Pentagon review of how to deal with homosexuals in the military. "But the most important thing is to lift the ban based solely on (sexual) status," she said. Nunn, making the rounds of morning television news shows, said he didn't think the hearings would change his opposition to lifting the ban. But he added it wouldn't be a problem "if people kept their private behavior private." Only three Democrats on the panel -- Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Carl Levin of Michigan and Charles Robb of Virginia -- support Clinton's policy. Clinton angered gay rights groups last week when he said it probably was constitutional to limit assignments for homosexuals in the armed forces. "Segregation is morally unacceptable," Thomas B. Stoddard of the Campaign for Military Service, an organization of gay rights and civil liberties groups, said in a letter to the president. Various gay rights representatives met with Clinton administration officials at the White House on Friday to complain. Administration officials said they assured leaders of the groups that Clinton is open-minded about the jobs homosexuals in the military may be assigned.