Pride Flag Removal Request Met With Rainbow Home Illumination

RACINE, WI — A Wisconsin couple found a way to amplify their pride message when a homeowners' association requested their modest flag be taken down.

Memo Fachino and his husband, Lance Mier, followed the request and took their pride flag down but replaced it with a rainbow display of floodlights illuminating the entire home with the pride colors, a photo Fachino shared on Reddit shows.

The Racine homeowners association to which the couple belong prohibited all flag displays other than the traditional American flag after residents were sporting Black Lives Matter, thin blue line and other “opinion” flags, Fachino wrote on Reddit.

Even flags supporting sports teams, including the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears that have significant followings across southern Wisconsin, are not allowed by the homeowners association.

The day the rule was made, someone called to report the couple’s pride flag, which had been up for years, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report. The homeowners association then requested to have it removed.

Fachino and Mier went online to buy different hues of lightbulbs and already had the other tools needed to pull off the pride light display, according to the Journal Sentinel.

The pride home illumination was more tongue-in-cheek than a statement directed at the homeowners association, though.

“We’re not trying to stick it to anyone,” Fachino told the Journal Sentinel. “We don’t feel targeted or attacked in our community. It was just a fun way for us to show our individuality and support in a way that didn’t break any HOA rules.”

After all, Fachino’s Reddit post was made in a Subreddit titled “Malicious Compliance.”