{"id":23062,"date":"2025-10-28T00:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/23062\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T00:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:33:08","slug":"fort-myers-church-hosts-rainbow-protest-in-love-after-state-orders-removal-of-street-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/23062\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Myers church hosts ‘Rainbow Protest in Love’ after state orders removal of street art"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, Oct. 26, color poured across the driveway of St. John the Apostle Metropolitan Community Church as dozens gathered for what organizers called a \u201crainbow protest in love.\u201d The event came after the state of Florida ordered<\/a> the removal of rainbow crosswalks earlier this year, citing traffic safety and uniformity. In June, the Florida Department of Transportation banned the use of public roads for social or ideological messages and warned it could withhold transportation funds from cities and counties that don\u2019t comply.<\/p>\n

In downtown Fort Myers, community members chose to respond with paintbrushes and prayer, honoring the 49 people killed in the 2016 Pulse nightclub<\/a> shooting in Orlando.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a very clear signal marker, that you have an intention, that goes beyond just making sure that crosswalks meet a uniform traffic code,\u201d said the Rev. Craig Cranston, the church\u2019s pastor. \u201cThat is just an unacceptable level of exercise by our government. So we said, ‘no, we\u2019re going to paint a rainbow flag. We\u2019re going to paint those 49 names. We\u2019re going to celebrate and memorialize those folks.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cRainbow<\/p>\n

\u201cRainbow Protest in Love\u201d at St. John the Apostle Metropolitan Community Church in downtown Fort Myers, on Sunday, Oct. 26.<\/p>\n

Rows of folding chairs and tables lined in front of the church as speakers offered reflections, including Mayor Kevin Anderson, the vice president of Visuality and the president of the Interfaith Alliance and more. When the final prayer was spoken, singers stepped forward to close the ceremony with a song. Behind the microphones, a large rainbow flag stretched across the church driveway. One by one, attendees dipped paintbrushes in black and wrote the names of the Pulse victims across the bright colors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government can\u2019t come and rip up that rainbow flag,\u201d Cranston said. \u201c[It\u2019s] clearly visible from the street. Anybody that comes anywhere near our church property is going to see it, and they’re going to know that we celebrate LGBTQ people.\u201d<\/p>\n

WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and\u00a0donate\u00a0<\/a>now. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday, Oct. 26, color poured across the driveway of St. John the Apostle Metropolitan Community Church as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-23062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}