"A war over crosswalks is erupting in Florida. After statewide efforts to erase Pride crosswalks began this week, communities have resisted - repainting them, fighting attempts to strip them, and in some cases, restoring rainbow colors overnight. Nowhere is this battle more symbolic than at the Pulse memorial in Orlando, dedicated to the LGBTQ+ people murdered there a decade ago."
"Earlier this week, officers painted the rainbow stripes into stark black and white. Citizens repainted them. Road crews erased them again. The back-and-forth has escalated to the point where the state has now deployed as many as six police squad cars to guard asphalt, their sole mission to prevent the reemergence of rainbow colors at the site of one of the worst anti-LGBTQ+ massacres in U.S. history."
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent letters to all 50 governors calling for the removal of Pride crosswalks, and Florida complied first. State officials painted over the rainbow crosswalk at Orlando's Pulse memorial, the 2016 massacre site that claimed 49 LGBTQ+ lives. Residents repeatedly restored the colors by hand with chalk and paint, and state road crews repeatedly scrubbed them away. The exchanges escalated until the state deployed as many as six police squad cars to guard the crosswalk to prevent re-coloring. Officers at the site justified their presence as a "safety issue" while advocates declared, "We refuse to be erased."
Read at Advocate.com
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