Each year, on the first Friday in December, we here at Dallas Voice announce the name of the person we have chosen to honor as our LGBTQ+ Texan of the Year. This year, that person is the Rev. Rachel Griffin-Allison, senior pastor at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church. (Read David Taffet’s story LGBTQ+ Texan of the year)
It was the pastor’s role in creating within her church a culture of radical love and acceptance, a culture brilliantly and boldly symbolized by repainting the steps up to the church’s main entrance in the colors of the rainbow, that earned her TotY honors.
OLUMC’s rainbow steps are, as Griffin-Allison said, “a visible witness to the gospel we preach: that every person is created in the image of God and worthy of safety, dignity and belonging.”
The decision to paint the steps has drawn international attention and an outpouring of pride, support and appreciation for the church. But it was those same rainbow steps that have drawn the scorn and anger of homophobes and haters from around the world.
It started in October, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued his edict banning decorative crosswalks, like Oak Lawn’s numerous rainbow crosswalks. Abbott claims that “non-standard” crosswalk designs are a safety hazard. They are not; in fact, numerous studies have shown that rainbow crosswalks enhance pedestrian/traffic safety.
The governor also insisted that we just can’t have crosswalks in public roadways that promote a particular “political ideology.” But the rainbow crosswalks are not about politics — at least, they weren’t until right-wingers like Abbott decided to make them into political statements. Instead, the rainbows are a symbol of pride in community, of community identity and of community cohesiveness and support.
The rainbow — in crosswalks and everywhere else — is supposed to symbolize joy and diversity and love and community. In the Bible, following the great flood, God sent a rainbow as a promise to never again destroy the world with floods.
As a result, rainbows have come to symbolize hope, good luck and new beginnings, of beauty and peace after a difficult time, of personal growth and excellence.
Joy. Diversity. Community.
Hope and new beginnings; beauty and peace after a difficult time.
That is what the rainbow crosswalks are all about.
What is so controversial about that? And yet, we’ve seen nothing but controversy since the first mention of rainbow crosswalks in Oak Lawn.
Remember: The rainbow crosswalks on Cedar Springs Road, initially installed beginning in February 2020, were paid for through private donations. When those first crosswalks were deemed to have degenerated too quickly and so were replaced earlier this year with a new rainbow design, the work was, again, paid for entirely through donations.
Neither time were any public funds spent. But just a quick perusal of comments left on the Dallas Voice website and on our social media posts regarding the crosswalks makes is painfully obvious just how astonishingly irate some people get. Over rainbows.
You’d think we were spending public tax dollars to fund live LGBTQ+ sex shows for kindergarten students to teach them how to be gay and have gay sex.
The most hateful, most virulently homophobic responses came from straight folks who had absolutely no dog in this hunt, so to speak.
Not a single red cent came out of their pockets to pay for the rainbow crosswalks. Nobody was out in their suburban neighborhoods painting rainbows in the street. There weren’t even any rogue bands of gay men breaking into their homes to redecorate the living room or fix their hair, and no rogue lesbian mechanics forcibly repairing their cars.
And yet, I think we probably got more people reading our stories about rainbow crosswalks and leaving comments about them than any other issue.
Then Abbott stepped in with his ridiculous demands, based on faulty reasoning, that the rainbow crosswalks be removed. And again the comments started pouring in. But this time, instead of just homophobes spewing rainbow-colored hate, it was the LGBTQ+ community weighing in, vowing to do everything possible to protect our rainbows.
Businesses along the Cedar Springs Strip started painting rainbows on their buildings. Dallas Voice Publisher Leo Cusimano went out and personally hand-painted all our newspaper stands on The Strip in rainbow colors. And, of course, Oak Lawn UMC on one end of Cedar Springs painted the steps leading up to its historic sanctuary, while at the other end of The Strip, Cathedral of Hope UCC put up rainbow flags along the roadway at the entrance to its campus.
Our community sent a very bold statement to Abbott and to the homophobes: This is our rainbow, too, and we will not sit idly by while you try and take it from us.
Like the Spartans told the Persians at Thermopylae, like the Texans told Lt. Francisco de Castañeda and his troops at the Battle of Gonzales: Come and take it. We dare you.
Tammye Nash is managing editor of Dallas Voice. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily represent the policies of Dallas Voice.