The First Amendment Be...

[Editorial]

...Damned!

Why is that it seems like the Republicans hates the 1st Amendment? They want to tell you which books to read, what television shows to watch, and now what colors to paint the fence!

A Florida city fined a lesbian couple over a rainbow fence. Now they’re suing

The ACLU says Key West selectively enforced the city code after the women painted their fence in rainbow colors to protest the removal of Pride crosswalks.

The Advocate

Jacob Ogles

May 08, 2026

Many Key West residents protested Florida’s removal of a rainbow crosswalk by painting their fences in the same colors, only to be met with city fines. Now, a federal lawsuit backed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenges that punishment on First Amendment grounds.

Coley Sohn and Linda Bagley-Sohn repainted 12 pickets at their Old Town home, inspiring similar protests throughout the city. But code complaints with the city prompted Key West officials to cite the lesbian couple, with the threat of $250 fines each day until the fence was repainted white.

What? What? You mean the city has a law on what color you can paint your fence? It looks like that you can paint your any color as long as it is white!

Sohn and Bagley-Sohn applied to the city in December for a permit to paint the fence pickets rainbow colors, but the city, in February, determined the display violated the code because the fence was no longer painted in an approved color.

This might be a hard case to sue except for the fact that they are only enforcing the rainbow colors. NBC News 6 in South Florida writes that,

Their attorney, Nick Warren of the ACLU of Florida, argues the city’s actions amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

“If you walk around Old Town Key West, you’ll see lots of colorful displays and different colored paints on fences and houses,” Warren said. “Many of them violate the same rules that the city is citing — but if the city is only enforcing the law against some people because of the message they’re expressing, that’s viewpoint discrimination.”

Sohn said the couple believes they have the right to express themselves.

“We have the right, as anyone else does, to protest what they want to protest,” she said. “If the powers that be don’t agree with what we’re protesting, it doesn’t mean they can silence us.”

That shoots holes in the city argument... it seems that they are only enforcing the law for "The Rainbow!"

[/Editorial]