And what the residents of the Westminster Oaks Senior Living Community in Tallahassee, Florida were doing last week was lying in the middle of the street, trying to block the Florida Department of Transportation from painting over a crosswalk in front of W.T. Moore Elementary School. The seniors and students together had painted the crosswalk in the school colors (green and yellow if you’re taking notes) and some 30 seniors came out to protest its removal.
Why, you might ask, was the State of Florida seeking to destroy a cherished local project like this? An excellent question, and it traces back to an order from the Florida Department of Transportation to remove all art and decorations from public roadways. Styled as a safety measure, the order is widely understood to be an attempt to cover up rainbow decorations associated with the LGBTQ movement. One of the first to go was a rainbow crossing that served as a memorial for the 49 people fatally shot by a gunman at the Pulse LGBTQ nightclub in 2016.
The intergenerational project in front of Moore Elementary School is simply an innocent victim of our misshapen politics. As one senior noted, “I think the whole thing is pretty darn stupid. I know why they are doing all that and removing them all. (It's) so they don’t have to explain why they are just removing the ones with rainbows and political stuff.” See, seniors are wise.