Florida state legislators took to social media Thursday to shame Governor Ron DeSantis for allegedly ordering the state’s Department of Transportation to paint over a LGBTQ rainbow sidewalk in Orlando.
The sidewalk was located next to the site of the Pulse nightclub, where 49 ‘mostly LGBTQ’ individuals were killed during a shooting in 2016.
State Senator Carlos G. Smith and State Representative Anna Eskamani – both Democrats – posted on social media Thursday, expressing anger at the removal, with Smith calling it illegal vandalism.
‘I hope the city of Orlando paints these colors back onto their property, and that they sue the state of Florida for vandalizing their property without their consent,’ Smith stated in a video posted on X.
‘They illegally vandalized city property without providing the city of Orlando notice, or getting their approval to remove this rainbow crosswalk that was painted here not only to remember the lives of the 49 mostly LGBTQ people of color who were murdered here, but also to keep the pedestrians and visitors safe who have come here year after year to pay their respects to those lives who were taken here,’ the state senator continued.
‘I can not believe that the DeSantis Administration has engaged in this hostile act against the city of Orlando,’ Smith also noted in his video.
DeSantis responded to Smith’s video on X, writing that he ‘will not allow … state roads to be commandeered for political purposes.’
President Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy launched in July a ‘nationwide road safety initiative’ in which he noted that ‘intersections and crosswalks need to be kept free from distractions,’ including rainbow sidewalks.
Duffy’s July letter specifically called out ‘political messages of any nature, artwork, or anything else that detracts from the core mission of driver and pedestrian safety’ as markings that should be removed by states and localities.
Per Equality Florida, Smith ‘made history as Florida’s first openly-LGBTQ Latino lawmaker with his election to the Florida House of Representatives in 2016’, and Florida Politics notes that he was the second gay man elected to the Florida Senate.
State Representative Anna Eskimani also fought back against DeSantis, writing on X that ‘it was never a political statement.’
She added that ‘what is political, what is authoritative, and what is disrespectful to the 49 lives murdered and our entire community, is sneaking into the city in the middle of the night to literally erase a rainbow crosswalk that was originally established with FDOT approval!’
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer wrote in his own statement posted on X that he was ‘devastated to learn that overnight the state painted over the Pulse Memorial crosswalk on Orange Avenue.’
In a letter to the City of Delray Beach, which also has a rainbow crosswalk, the Florida Department of Transportation ordered the city to remove the similar markings earlier this week.
The FDOT noted that and that if they didn’t, the state would do it for them, and that ‘costs associated with the removal will be assessed against the city.’