She is a lovely person: wicked smart, quite successful, and exceedingly kind. But she lives in Hernando County, Florida, a location that is right in the heart of deepest red Maga country.
Not just Maga, but klan maga. She’s in a community right near Brooksville, a town named after an antebellum senator most famous for having beat an abolitionist colleague on the floor of congress. Incidentally, he wasn’t from Florida, and to my knowledge had no affiliation with the town. They just saw fit to honor his legacy just the same.
It’s sketchy enough that her group, the Democratic Club of Hernando County, have stickers on their cars that just say “HCDC”, because use of the full name would cause vandalism. And her son who just got a job doing sales was told that they have to be careful about sending darker skinned people door to door.
In this town, my friend is unfortunately neighbors with a classic maga moron. The guy has an extensive criminal record, and a wife who credits him with healing her by a laying of faithful hands, and seized on every opportunity to terrorize her (what set him off? She was wearing a mask during COVID; incidentally, her husband has a bad immune system). He’s the type who hung some huge obnoxious trump flag in his yard well after donald had been proven a loser.
My friend is even more unfortunate to live in a neighborhood with a thriving homeowners association, complete with all of the abuses of power you might imagine arise when pathetic peons perceive some semblance of power.
So she’s been dodging fines for having the wrong mulch (why is it wrong when at least 3 other houses have the same choice?), or for not having shrubs with the right pedigree. And meanwhile, maga moron (who forced a recall so he could worm his way into hoa politics) skates by with impunity.
My friend has endured two (!) frivolous lawsuits because her son was supposedly driving too fast past the neighbor, had her efforts at a sale thwarted by periodic nuisance noise making, and can’t go out onto her back porch without being stared at.
For the last several months, maga has been flying a big ole blue lives matter flag in his front yard. Friend, sick of any cowering at all (and planning a re-listing in 2024) decided she’d respond by getting her own flagpole and putting up a nice rainbow gay rights flag.
Cue HOA, which has demanded she remove her improper display.
And, for added intrigue, the land of Florida.
It seems that neighbor can keep up his big ole blue lives matter flag regardless of the HOA, unlike my friend, because ron desantis signed a law that says that flags that honor first responders can never be forced to be removed. Gay rainbow flags? Not so much.
And that leads us here.
My friend was told she had to remove her rainbow flag because it’s not a first responder flag.
Her emailed reply
Here’s a more conventional one. My friend’s is just more pastel.
And here is the pertinent text of the new law. I don’t see a spot where the specific colors are mandated. It looks to me like Florida ought to be awash in rainbow first responder flags. They can operate like the ok symbol for white supremacists (a dog whistle).
Your friend’s flag probably also has the benefit of not being a violation of the US Flag Code, as most of the “First Responder Flags” are. Sheesh, you’d think that the party that’s always humping the flag would know the proper way to respect it.
The honorable Preston Brooks of South Carolina. (Although I must confess error. Although this happened on the floor of the senate, he was but a representative. The victim was a Senator).
I would suggest your friend (and kudos for their bravery), if they haven’t already, invest in a reasonably high resolution interior or inaccessible rear digital camera to catch evidence of the inevitable vandalism.
I strongly suspect local Law Enforcement will drag their feet on it, then reporting that failure, or, as it common these days, putting it up online for the whole world to view (depending on local legislation) may be worth considering.
Of course, that’s all easy for me to say, as it would nearly certainly end up as an escalation, but… your friend is brave, and appears ready to make a stand. Please feel free to pass on my heartfelt respect. Because, TBH, I’d run as soon as I could manage. I have distant, deceased family that didn’t get out of Europe early enough prior to WW2.
I don’t have any sympathy for her. It was her choice to live in a neighborhood with a homeowners association–probably because she wanted to live in a neighborhood with “standards”–and now she is whining because the rules also apply to her.
I find this to be the least generous possible interpretation. Sure, it can happen, I don’t deny it, but if you (speaking from experience) have to move for work, you often don’t have a lot of time to carefully pick and choose all your living arrangements. You often pick the option that gets you the best combination of space, commute, cost, possible schools, and go, hoping that it’ll workout or expect to move again later.
Which seems to be what the friend wanted to do, but having issues listing the property if I’m reading properly.
Your comment reflects more on your assumptions than the friends actions.
Granted I don’t -know- the exact circumstances EITHER, but assuming the worst again is all about you.
She really should not be playing this game with the HOA. This is real life with real, legal consequences. I’m not sure she understands how it’s going to proceed with the HOA and what consequences she may face. Here’s how it will likely go down. The HOA will have a lawyer write a cease and desist letter, then they’ll take her to court, and she’ll likely lose. Even if the law doesn’t state what exactly a “first responder flag” is, the judge will interpret it to mean what a FRF is reasonably understood to be. A blue lives matter flag is understood to be a FRF flag. A rainbow gay rights flag is not. I’m guessing she’s the first person to make the argument that it’s a FRF flag–and her argument is pretty weak. If she wants to fight this by saying the rainbow flag is a FRF because it has colors, it will likely end up going through many appeals. She may understand she’ll incur legal costs for her fight, but she might not understand she’ll have to pay the HOA costs if she loses. Typically, the HOA is authorized to recover from the homeowner any legal fees incurred when trying to get a homeowner to comply. So not only will she have to pay her own legal fees, but she’ll have to pay the HOAs as well. If she doesn’t, the HOA will put a lien on her house.
Furthermore, she should not be playing this game with a MAGA nutter. He probably loves this kind of fight and will relish in ways to escalate it. It’s not like he’s going to see the rainbow flag and then take down all his MAGA stuff. He’ll ramp it up by going into MAGA overdrive with spotlights on the flag and Trump inflatables in the yard.
What she should probably do is replace the rainbow flag with that official FRF flag. I’m sure the MAGAs and HOA will think it’s some kind of gay rainbow USA flag because of the colors and tell her to take it down. That request she should fight since she’d probably win.
It’s one of the nicest neighborhoods in the area. It abuts a nature preserve, so there are rules about development, but there are frequent sightings of animals like deer.
She loved it. She’s a rules person, and had no qualms about following them. She delighted in maintaining a community facebook page which posted of picture of local animal sightings.
Things changed during the 2020 election. Her neighbor moved in and, finding her wearing a mask during the early Covid outbreak (as I noted already, her husband is sickly) asked her “you’re not one of those liberals, are you?”
Among the rules was one about political flags. You could post them within a certain amount of time of the election. She had a modest Biden flag. Her neighbor had a big Trump/Pence sign on a flagpole.
Which he kept up after donald lost in November. And kept up into January. She only complained when, after January 6, he crossed out Pence’s name.
Shortly thereafter, it was a full on assault. Her newly born grand baby died within hours of birth, but she was getting written complaints that her family was driving too fast through the neighborhood. When she tried to explain the family tragedy, the neighbor’s wife said on the community Facebook page she was using the baby’s death as an excuse.
That set off her teenage son, who would rev his engine when he drove by the neighbor. That led to the first of two lawsuits for stalking (cue me, and two consecutive dismissals).
And so it goes.
(That neighborhood Facebook page, for example, is now private. My friend isn’t allowed on it. Some anonymous person named “Justa Citizen” frequently slanders her there).
She tried to sell the house once, but the neighbor did what he could to make noise anytime there was a showing. Plus, it wasn’t a good market for a house approaching a million dollars in this part of Florida.
So for now it’s just focusing on the newly born grandbaby (the second time was the charm), since her daughter lives in the cottage behind the house, with plans to try moving next year.
(And I know their HOA lawyer. His brother is an award winning Broadway playwright who has been acclaimed for a play about gay people. Not everybody here is deranged)
You mean, unambiguous violations of the HOA rules? Unlike the wooden thing he laughably attributed to sukkot (consistency be damned)
