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The Sunshine Skyway won’t light up in its usual rainbow colors for Pride month this year. This comes amid an FDOT rule that affect all state bridge lightings this summer.
Since 2021 the Sunshine Skyway Bridge lit up rainbow during a week in June to celebrate pride month.
Now, it and other bridges across the state will shine strictly red, white, and blue from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
FDOT secretary Jared Perdue made the announcement on X. He says it’s for Ron DeSantis’s recently announced Freedom Summer sales tax holiday. But that holiday is only in July.
Nicholas Machuca is the Deputy Director of Development for LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida.
“Rainbow lights on all the bridges in Florida were just a simple celebration of diversity and inclusion, and that is obviously against the DeSantis agenda, so ultimately not very surprised but still disappointed.”
The Tampa Bay Times reports Manatee County Commissioner Mike Rahn emailed FDOT to express his disapproval of lighting for Pride Month and Gun Violence Awareness.
He told the Times the lighting of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is a FDOT matter and should not be left with to the individual counties.
St. Petersburg’s LGBTQ+ liason appealed Rahn’s objection of the lights to FDOT, but was ignored.
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