Fort Lauderdale has called an emergency meeting after being ordered by the state to remove a rainbow-colored pride display from a side street near the beach.

The state order, which comes with a Sept. 4 deadline, prompted Mayor Dean Trantalis to set the meeting for 6 p.m. Wednesday to discuss the city’s official response and give residents in one of the state’s most LGBTQ-friendly towns a chance to speak.

“There seems to be an irrational vengeance on the part of the state to erase images that reflect the LGBTQ community,” Trantalis said Monday. “They will attempt different approaches. Right now their approach is to invoke an obscure statute regarding traffic enforcement. But this isn’t really a pedestrian issue. This is a culture war. Let’s call it what it is.”

In a matter of days, state

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