A rainbow crosswalk near Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., honoring the victims of one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings, was painted over late Wednesday after close to a decade, part of a state and nationwide effort to scrub “political banners” from public roads.

The Pulse Memorial’s crosswalk, first painted in 2017, honored the 49 people killed in 2016 when a gunman opened fire at Pulse, an LGBTQ-friendly nightclub. The city of Orlando purchased the site in 2023, planning to demolish the building, which has been closed since 2016, and construct a permanent memorial in its place.

Florida state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D), who in 2016 became the first openly gay Latino elected to the Legislature, called the crosswalk’s removal a “disgusting betrayal” in a post on the social platform X.

“Of course they did this in the middle of the night,” Smith said Thursday in a nearly two-minute-long video in front of the painted-over crosswalk, “because they knew what they were doing is wrong.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), responding to Smith’s video, said, “We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes.”

In June, DeSantis omitted references to........

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