Letter: Rainbow crosswalks reflect Pride

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Editor,

I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Mayor Molly Hughes and the Coupeville Town Council for commemorating LGBTQ+ Pride Month by painting the crosswalks at Alexander and Coveland Streets in “rainbow colors.”

For LGBTQ+ folks, Pride is a joyful recognition that we have survived the negative messages that certain religious and political segments of society have tried to ingrain in us since childhood, namely that we are bad, immoral or sick people.

LGBTQ+ Pride is not a celebration of our sexual orientation as some would have you believe. Sexual orientation is not something special; it’s just a natural condition all members of humanity share, one way or another.

Our LGBTQ+ Pride movement is our personal and community’s way to counteract these negative, soul-killing, societal messages which we call “internalized oppression.” By exercising our First Amendment rights of Free Speech, we are able to oppose those religious and political forces that would deny us our civil and human rights.

Nationally, Trump’s MAGA movement is trying to erase our presence in and continued contributions to our society and culture as they have with other minority groups like Black people, immigrants and women, to name a few.

As an openly gay man here in Coupeville, I have always felt welcomed as a member of our local nonprofit groups like the Penn Cove Water Festival, the Island County Historical Society and Museum and the governmental Island County Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. I was not only welcomed but appreciated for what I was able to contribute. There are so many other LGBTQ+ folks who have also been active volunteers in such diverse groups as the Whidbey Arts Council, the Pacific Northwest Art School, CADA, Ebey’s Reserve Board, the Town’s Historic Preservation Committee, the Coupeville Historic Waterfront Association (CHWA) and the Coupeville Chamber of Commerce.

I know that our mayor and City Council have received complaints, hate calls and even death threats in the past four years about the “rainbow sidewalk painting” during Pride month. I am glad to hear that the complaints have steadily decreased each year.

Coupeville is a community where we LGBTQ+ folks can live regular lives and have many loving, non-LGBTQ+ folks to share our journey as relatives, allies and friends, for which we are very grateful.

Michael Ferri

Coupeville