Alex Gonzalez
Audio By Carbonatix
After months of back-and-forth, the city of Dallas has been ordered to remove “any and all political ideologies” from its streets, per an October order from Gov. Greg Abbott enforced by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). After a rejected request for exemption, the city has until Jan. 31 to submit a plan to remove decorative pavement, like the rainbow and Black Lives Matter crosswalks in Oak Lawn and South Dallas.
“In Oak Lawn specifically, our rainbow crosswalks are a symbol of pride and inclusion, not politics,” the neighborhood’s council member, Paul Ridley, said in a November newsletter.
When the directive from the governor’s office was first issued on Oct. 8, some cities were quick to comply, fearing the threatened withholding of state and federal road funding. Houston, Austin and San Antonio have already cleared their own rainbow roads, but Dallas held out for as long as possible, keeping over 30 decorative pavement pieces across the city.
The exception request, submitted to TxDOT on Nov. 9 by City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, was rejected because it “did not include a signed and sealed document from a licensed traffic engineer,” according to a memo from Tolbert. But not all hope is lost. The city has the same January deadline to resubmit an exception request with a stamp of approval from a licensed traffic engineer. The city has not indicated whether it will reapply.
Whether city leaders choose to continue the fight or not, Dallasites have stepped up to the plate to show their pride. Oak Lawn United Methodist Church made national headlines when it literally brought the rainbow to its doorsteps in a retaliatory move made in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.
“The governor may remove a rainbow from a roadway — but he cannot erase the image of God in God’s people,” the church wrote on a social media post unveiling the rainbow staircase. “We are painting our steps because faith is not silent in the face of harm.”
The weight of the directive from Abbott was felt especially by the local LGBTQ+ community, which has been under the microscope in President Donald Trump’s second term. As more LGBTQ+ specific resources are rolled back at the federal level, like dedicated suicide hotlines and HIV care information, the state government has matched pace, passing legislation targeting transgender Texans, and now, requiring the removal of innocent pride emblems.
