'Freedom' is just another word for playing politics with lighting bridges in Florida
It has been more than two years since Carol Rescigno, president of the Sarasota chapter of Brady, United Against Gun Violence, began working toward getting a display of orange lighting on the Ringling Bridge to bring awareness to National Gun Violence Awareness month.
Last September Rescigno learned her group’s request had been approved and ever since she’s been planning the chapter’s first collective gathering to watch the display from downtown Sarasota’s Bayfront Park at sunset on June 8, bringing attention to the approximately 40,000 gun deaths that occur in this country every year.
So it wasn’t just supporters of LGBTQ pride month whose plans were dashed when Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) recently declared all bridges in the state would instead be lit with red, white and blue lighting from Memorial Day through Labor Day in celebration of “freedom summer,” the July tax holiday signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Lighting displays for Mental Health Awareness, Juneteenth and Ovarian Cancer Awareness, were among the others also cancelled.
Within four days following the announcement, there were three gun deaths in Sarasota County alone – one an extended family member of Sarasota City Commissioner Kyle Battie. All the more reason the decision to deny her group’s bridge lighting did not sit well with Rescigno, who grew up in a military family.
“We’ve been in Sarasota for 12 years fighting for safer gun laws – not trying to take guns away, just looking for people to be safe,” Rescigno said. “And for the state to decide whatever they’re celebrating for ‘freedom summer’ is more important than these other issues is just wrong.
“As an Army kid, I certainly believe in the patriotism of the colors and our organization does as well," Rescigno said. "We celebrate being Americans, too. But I tend to think that if you really believe in freedom and patriotism, then you should be looking at some of these organizations trying to keep people free from dying.”
Immediately following the decision, Jason Champion, board president of Project Pride SRQ, which had anticipated a week of rainbow lighting to coincide with events the organization has planned for the entire month of June, posted a petition of protest on the group’s website that quickly gained close to 700 signatures.
“We’re all Americans,” said Champion. “We all believe in freedom and stand behind our flag. But representation and being able to showcase minority groups is how we begin to build American freedom and equality for all.”
Once before, in 2021, the state denied rainbow lighting for Pride month for the Ringling Bridge and a bridge in Jacksonville, but that decision was quickly reversed. According to the state’s lighting policy, FDOT can reject any temporary color scheme it deems “offensive or not in the public interest” and displays are reserved for “events of broad community interests and significance approved by local governments.” But for years it has approved specialized lighting of bridges across the state, not only for holidays and awareness campaigns, but even to celebrate local sports teams.
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The city of Sarasota, which had approved the specialized lighting for Pride SRQ and Brady, as well as for many other groups in the coming year, said through a spokesperson that the city “cannot supersede the state” and must abide by its decision.
The catalyst for the policy change was reportedly an objection by Manatee County Commissioner Michael Rahn. According to the Tampa Bay Times, a Feb. 13 email from Manatee County Administrator Charlie Bishop to FDOT officials said Rahn approved of lighting displays on the Sunshine Skyway bridge for the Alzheimer’s Foundation, National Ovarian Cancer Month and others but not Pride month or National Gun Violence Awareness Day. (Elected officials from Hillsborough, Pinellas and Manatee counties must all approve lighting for the Skyway bridge.) Rahn’s objection triggered the governor to veto all pre-approved lighting across the entire state for the whole summer.
Rahn told Herald-Tribune reporter Jesse Mendoza that the lighting decision was “an FDOT matter,” but added, “My concern is if we are going to do it for one group, we have to do it for all groups no matter what their political stance is.” His rejection of some requests while approving others was based, he said, on his personal belief that “the bridge is being politicized by different organizations.”
That statement seems laughable in light of (no pun intended) the governor’s own politicization of multiple issues and his repeated touting of “the free state of Florida” while denying LGBTQ rights, curating books and history instruction in public schools, and severely limiting women’s reproductive rights. This is hardly the first time he has grandstanded by waving the “red, white and blue” while pushing a selective and partisan agenda, implying that those who see things differently are unpatriotic.
Moreover, the co-opting of the name “freedom summer” devalues the historical significance and enduring accomplishments of the Freedom Summer of 1964, a critical time that ultimately helped push forward the Civil Rights Act, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. How ironic that the phrase is now being used to deny an equal opportunity to certain groups based on a subjective and prejudiced view of their worthiness.
Members of the Brady chapter, along with advocates from Moms Demand-Manasota, plan to go forward with their June 8 gathering in Bayfront Park, despite the fact that they will not be able to watch the Ringling Bridge take on an orange glow after sunset as anticipated. They say they will make up for it with an abundance of orange shirts and a plethora of orange glow sticks.
SRQ Pride intends to “light up the bridge in our own way,” according to Champion, by meeting at Hart’s Landing at the east end of the bridge on June 27 and having supporters traverse the bridge streaming all 700 feet of the organization’s rainbow “grand flag.”
Many other groups who had already received approval for lighting displays in the coming year are now in the dark as to whether those permissions will be rescinded.
What bridge lighting will be allowed after Labor Day? If not local communities, who will be the arbiter of which organizations are considered permissible and which deemed “too political”? Is it fair that requests by other groups that fall outside of these summer months be upheld after those whose events fell in the upcoming months were denied? Or will this exclusionary interpretation of freedom mean we can look forward to an “endless summer” of red white and blue?
The answers are likely clear as the light of day.
Contact Carrie Seidman at carrie.seidman@gmail.com or 505-238-0392.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota groups pay the price for governor's bridge lighting stunt
