Ed. Note: I despise the term “rainbow” …. Rainbows are a symbol of PRIDE.
Key West used to be a place that didn’t need to explain itself. Color was its language. Pride wasn’t a marketing slogan; it was a way of life. You could feel it in the air — the drag queens strutting down Duval, the roosters crowing at sunset, the laughter spilling from bars where nobody cared who you loved or what you looked like.
Then came the lawyers.
Then came the rules.
And now, the same city that celebrates rainbow flags from every balcony is clutching its pearls over — of all things — rainbow-painted bike racks.
THE DOCTORS RX
It started with Dr. Jessica Johnson, a local osteopath with a sharp mind and a knack for civic order.
She sent an email asking if the city had followed proper procedure before painting the racks in the historic district. It wasn’t an attack — it was a question: does City Hall play by the same rules as everyone else?
Fair enough.
But somewhere between her keyboard and the commission chambers, the message got lost — and the rainbows became suspects in a bureaucratic crime.
THE CONFESSION AND THE COLOR WAR
Commissioner Monica Haskell stepped up and said it plainly. “Apparently we had not” gotten HARC approval, she admitted. “The city should lead by example.”
And there it was — the spark that set off a full-blown moral panic over paint. A few stripes of color, meant to celebrate love and belonging, suddenly found themselves trapped in a procedural tangle.
But let’s not kid ourselves: those racks weren’t graffiti.
They were gratitude.
They were the latest echo of the Pride crosswalks at Duval and Petronia — the beating heart of Key West Pride, where decades of LGBTQ+ history intersect with the city’s promise of acceptance.
THE SPIRIT OF PRIDE
The rainbow in Key West isn’t decoration — it’s declaration.
Of PRIDE.
It’s the promise made after the 1973 gay rights march, the vow that this island would be safe for everyone: queer, straight, trans, Conch, tourist, drunk poet, runaway preacher, or drag queen in sequins and cigarette smoke.
Failed newspaper reporter.
Those bike racks weren’t defiance; they were devotion.
A simple act of color in a world still too gray. A reminder that Pride isn’t something that happens once a year — it’s something you live every day.
THE REAL OFFENSE
The real sin here isn’t a lack of permits — it’s a lack of perspective.
Key West’s bureaucrats got so tangled in process they forgot the purpose: to make this island beautiful, inclusive, and alive.
Dr. Johnson’s call for accountability came from a good place — she wanted order, not oppression. But the real lesson here isn’t about oversight; it’s about ownership. The city doesn’t own Pride. The people do.
THE FINAL WHISTLE
So keep the rainbows.
Let them shine.
Let the paint fade naturally in the sun like everything else in Key West — gracefully, honestly, defiantly.
Because this town was built by people who colored outside the lines.
And if the worst thing we can say about the city is that someone loved it loudly — then we’re doing just fine.
In a world still fighting to be itself, Key West should never apologize for a splash of color.
To anybody.
Or anything.
The rainbows didn’t break the rules.
They reminded the island what freedom looks like.
