‘Why us and not them?’
Connie and Amy Cooley with their rainbow yard sign Former Burleson HOA faces discrimination allegations CAROLINE SAVOIE | Contributing Writer CaroSavoWrites@gmail.com Calvin Brown resigned from the board of his neighborhood’s homeowners association in Burleson recently after he got a series of texts from his fellow board members over whether or not a lesbian couple in the neighborhood should be fined for their yard sign. “The gays do not need to influence our kids,” then-HOA President Marvin Morton wrote in one text. “They are having a hard enough time as it is.
The fags need to get back in their closet and leave the kids alone!” Connie and Amy Cooley have had a 12-inch-by-18-inch rainbow-colored sign in their front yard since they moved to the neighborhood in November 2022.
In October 2023, the couple started receiving fines from their landlord on behalf of the Wakefield HOA, which oversees 519 homes in Burleson.
This home down the street from the Cooleys has a number of yard signs. Any sign not related to a holiday is a violation of HOA rules Brown said the problem started in October after Morton, former president of the Wakefield HOA, said another board member, Kirbi Gibbons, brought the couple’s sign to his attention.
