I’m about done with being polite. All it took to tip me over the line between respectful protest and arrest-worthy resistance were four six-packs of heat-bonded, Crayola-colored rainbow crosswalks at Key West’s Duval and Petronia intersection. Purple, blue, teal and the sunset triplets, yellow, orange and red. A freaking rainbow.

Not even the Pride rainbow either, because the Pride rainbow would likely sport a pink stripe and maybe white, brown and black. But a rainbow nevertheless, and we all know how those colors trigger the snowflake brains and shriveled hearts of the Trump-DeSantis-loving troglodytes.

Egads, those rainbow crosswalks are enough to make them slam on their golf cart brakes smack in the middle of the intersection in discombobulated horror. These are the same folks who can’t remember to switch off their turn signals, so between the eternal clicking and the abrupt stop in the middle of the street, revoking their driving privileges makes more sense than scrubbing rainbows.

They clutch that red Solo cup of beer when their sandal-clad tootsies step off the curb onto a corner-to-corner rainbow crosswalk. You can read the bubble above their heads: “If I walk on this will those colors turn me (gasp) gay?” I know they’d rip a rainbow T-shirt off their sons, but I gotta ask: What are they doing with the rainbows and unicorns on their daughters’ princess gowns?

Rubbish. Yet here we are.

On July 1, with the enactment of Tampa-area Republican state Sen. Jay Collins’ bill, SB 1662, the Florida Department of Transportation got the green light to hunt down Florida’s rainbow crosswalks, order their removals and withhold state transportation funding if they remain.

Keep in mind that Florida lawmakers couldn’t drum up enough support in the 2025 session to pass a “get rid of Pride flags on government property” bill, so they did the next best thing: Slip a few lines into SB 1662 insisting on conformity in crosswalk markings in the name of “safety” and crack down on those rainbows.

That’s in lockstep with the Daddy Trump administration’s loathing for rainbows. Conveniently on July 1, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to the 50 governors telling them to get with Trump’s SAFE ROADS program, which, also conveniently, orders the removal of “distractions.” He went on to add, “Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork.”

Take this to the bank: If Key West’s crosswalks were painted red and white with Trump MAGA hats, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Rainbow crosswalks | Pointless, petty, political cosplay

With the gawdawful overturning of American democracy, rainbow crosswalks ought not be on the top-10 list of greatest protests. ICE’s fear-and-thunder campaign is disappearing thousands of people. Mean-spirited federal and state funding cuts are just beginning the trickle down to local levels, jeopardizing lives, infrastructure, the environment and economies. The train’s done wrecked, the engine’s over the cliff and the caboose ain’t far behind. Hyperbole? How ’bout you get back to me on that in 2028 when the worst of the defunding policies are law of the (is)land?

So how come the rainbow crosswalks ruckus sticks in my craw like a hair on a biscuit? It’s so darn pointless. I’m all for safe streets, but, come on, no one has a single data point showing rainbow crosswalks are a threat to anything except the febrile, nationalistic fetishes of the petty, sniveling, gleeful, mean, cosplay bullies — with not the good sense God gave a chicken — who are holding towns hostage just because they can.

I’m a 75-year-old grandmother with white privilege slathered over me like butter on that biscuit. I eat the Beatitudes for breakfast and the Golden Rule for dessert. My momma raised me on a checklist that required gloves on Sunday morning, full-face makeup for the grocery store and clean underwear at all times — just in case some EMT might be offended by tattered ones while extracting me from a car wreck. Ladies, Momma said, are always polite even when distressed.

So when I plop down my creaky, ticked-off self in my beach chair with my rainbow umbrella, my Kindle and smartphone, a bottle of water and some sunscreen at the corner of Duval and Petronia, go ahead, arrest me. I’m done with being polite.

My kids will roll their eyes. Poor Ranger Ed will bail me out. I’ll be wearing makeup and clean granny panties and scared out of my old-lady mind. Maybe I’ll take along Michael the Cat 5; he’s a bit of a protective terrorist when provoked. But Mary, Joseph and the Wee Donkey, what an obit-capping epitaph. Join me? I do so love a party.

Learn more

Senate Bill 1662

Does removing rainbow crosswalks improve safety? Hint: No.