NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- On Monday, a traveling exhibit about gay history began a planned four-month display in the Missouri Capitol. By Wednesday night, it was gone.

The exhibit, created by historians at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, was supposed to be in the Capitol building’s Missouri State Museum until the end of the year, said state Sen. Greg Razer, a Democrat. But the display, which explored the gay rights movement in Kansas City, was quietly removed by the state authorities this week in a decision that drew widespread attention.

In the few days it was up, visitors to the Capitol could walk among the exhibit’s banners, which stood prominently in a main hallway, and learn how LGBTQ people had organized in Kansas City and later created a group that fostered a community in the city.

Kelli Jones, a spokeswoman for Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, said in a statement on Friday afternoon that the exhibit organizers had violated a state law that required them to coordinate with the state’s Board of Public Buildings, a three-member panel that includes the governor, the lieutenant governor and the attorney general.

In a statement Friday night, the Natural Resources Department said it would relocate the exhibit to a building at the Jefferson Landing State Historic Site, where the Missouri State Museum has another location. The exhibit will open on Saturday.

The Missouri State Capitol Commission, which maintains the Capitol building, will coordinate the exhibit in the new location instead of the Board of Public Buildings, the statement said.

Razer, who is openly gay, called the decision to remove the display from the Capitol “unacceptable.”

John Cunning, a former director of the museum, said Friday that he was “befuddled” by the state’s rationale that the exhibit had been taken down because the Board of Public Buildings was not involved in approving it. Cunning oversaw the museum for 24 years.

“Never in that time did I have to get permission from the Board of Public Buildings to put up an exhibit,” he said, adding that he had “never had any dealings with the board.”

Razer said the governor’s reasoning “seemed like a convenient excuse.”

Before the exhibit was taken down, at least two Republican state representatives said they were opposed to its display in the Capitol.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.