Support for same-sex relationships is down. But at least at D.C.’s Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), the rainbow is here to stay for June.

For the next few weeks, Metro travelers will see train, bus, and Metro Access vehicles all wrapped in a rainbow design with the words “Proudly Join Us on Metro,” according to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority website. WMATA says it will transport people to and from Pride events, via these “special Pride vehicles.” The vehicles will run through June 30, and an online feature shows a tracker for travelers to check where they are available to board.

According to several sources, the WMATA guidelines expressly forbid advertisements in which there may be “varying public opinions.” And yet there appears to be a special exception here, despite growing public sentiment on LGBT extremism.

Earlier this month, a Gallup Poll revealed that the public approval for same-sex relations in 2026 has not been lower than it is now since 2016, Fox News reported.

That’s a stark contrast to the enthusiasm of WMATA, which posted on X on June 5: “Snap a photo of your ride with Metro Pride and share it with us for a chance to be featured on our page! Keep your eyes peeled for our wrapped Metro Access vehicle!” 

One user commented, “I would rather walk,” while another asked if taxpayer dollars funded the rainbow vehicle designs.

“At a minimum, taxpayers are right to ask whether government agencies should be using public funds to promote contested social causes,” David Closson, Family Research Council’s director of the Center for Biblical Worldview told The Washington Stand. “WMATA’s decision to run these advertisements once again underscores the tension between religious convictions that the vast majority of Americans once held and the increasingly activist role that many public institutions have assumed in debates about sexuality and identity.”

It isn’t uncommon to see left-leaning cities use taxpayer dollars to decorate urban areas with ideologically progressive themes. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) is no exception, describing the District to a crowd outside of City Hall as “the gayest city of the world,” according to D.C. News Now.

As Closson pointed out, “From a Christian perspective, the concern with WMATA is not simply that a public transportation agency chose to decorate buses and trains with rainbow imagery during the month of June. The deeper issue is the extent to which government institutions increasingly function as advocates for a particular moral vision. Historically, public agencies existed to provide essential services in a viewpoint-neutral manner.”

“Increasingly, however, many Americans perceive taxpayer-funded institutions as actively promoting contested beliefs about sexuality and gender. For many Christians who believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that God created humanity male and female, these campaigns come across as government endorsement of an ideology that conflicts with their deeply held convictions.”

The LGBT-decorated vehicles come after the WMATA’s history of rejecting Christian ads. In 2017, WMATA refused to allow a Christmastime ad from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of D.C. to run on the side of buses.

The archdiocese claimed that “WMATA was discriminating based on viewpoint because it was happy to have other Christmas ads which are religiously related and which convey the view that Christmas is a commercial holiday, but that WMATA didn’t want to accept the archdiocese’s view that Christmas is noncommercial and should be focused on the gift of Christ,” FRC pointed out at the time.

In 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union, alongside the First Liberty Institute, sued WMATA for refusing to run two WallBuilders ads, a Christian organization that emphasizes “the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built,” reported The Washington Stand.

Notwithstanding WMATA’s Pride displays, corporate sponsorships for Pride events are down 60-70% from last year, according to a report from NPR. “WMATA’s decision to run these advertisements once again underscores the tension between religious convictions that the vast majority of Americans once held and the increasingly activist role that many public institutions have assumed in debates about sexuality and identity,” Closson concluded.