No rainbow lights: Sunshine Skyway Bridge goes dark for Pride 2024
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Tampa Bay’s iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge is going dark for Pride Month this year — the first time in three years the bridge will not display rainbow colors celebrating the LGBTQ+ community.
The bridge, which spans Lower Tampa Bay to connect Pinellas County to Manatee County, previously lit up in vibrant colors for one week in June; however, that won’t be the case this year.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the decision comes due to a single Manatee County commissioner who “expressed disapproval of requests for light displays honoring Pride and Gun Violence Awareness Day.”
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But Commission Chairman Mike Rahn told WFLA that the Florida Department of Transportation should control the lighting of the bridge.”
“With regards to the recent controversy that’s been created for the lighting of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, we here in Manatee County believe that FDOT should control the lighting of the bridge. It’s their bridge,” Rahn said. “It’s not our bridge, and FDOT has passed along to Manatee, Hillsborough, Pinellas counties the authorization to light a bridge whatever color it is.”
Rahn said it’s his belief that a special lighting request should be sent to Tallahassee for the department or the local office in Manatee to review the request and decide to light the bridge.
In the past, the bridge illuminated blue and yellow to honor Ukraine, blue and white to support Israel, changed colors for sports teams and on special days.
While the department made no public comment regarding the opposition from Rahn, the agency instead announced that all bridges will display red, white, and blue from Memorial Day to Labor Day as part of Florida’s “Freedom Summer.”
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“As Floridians prepare for Freedom Summer, Florida’s bridges will follow suit, illuminating in red, white, and blue from Memorial Day through Labor Day! Thanks to the leadership of @GovRonDeSantis, Florida continues to be the freest state in the nation,” FDOT Secretary Jared W. Perdue wrote on social media.
This means no bridges in the state will show rainbow colors for Pride in June. Not only will the patriotic colors wipe out Pride’s lights, but other days such as Juneteenth and Mental Health Awareness Day will be dimmed as well.
“The lighting of the bridge has somewhat gotten out of…a little bit out of control with all the requests we get,” Rahn said. “And it should not fall on us as a county commission or a chair of a county commission. It should fall on FDOT.”
The Commission Chairman argued that the bridge is “getting politicized” due to the different lighting requests that are coming in.
“It’s just gotten to be a political hot button and not just a simple lighting of a bridge, which it shouldn’t be. It should be a simple lighting of a bridge — national holidays and those types of things. And if there’s a special request, that should go to FDOT, not come to the country for three counties to agree on lighting up a bridge,” he continued.
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Rahn reiterated that out of Hillsborough, Manatee and Pinellas counties, if one county disagrees, the bridge can’t be lit, so it should be a “decision made at the state level, not a local level.”
The disappointment of not lighting the bridge comes nearly a year after organizers for Tampa Pride on the River cancelled one of the region’s largest Pride celebrations, after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an “anti-drag” bill — an explain of the Parental Rights in Education Act — what critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” Law.
Despite the cancellation, organizers of the event said Pride on the River would return in September 2024.
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