The Rainbow Flag
Original Gay Pride Flag
Pride Flag History:
The Rainbow (or Gay Pride) Flag was created by artist and vexillographer Gilbert Baker, a friend of the late Harvey Milk, in 1978. The flag debuted at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade. It has since been used round the world as a symbol of LGBT unity in many ariations, including adaptations such as bumper stickers and decals. The Rainbow Flag is recognized by the international Congress of Flag Makers. The Rainbow (Pride) Flag lives in the public domain.
Colors of the Rainbow Flag:
The original flag had eight stripes from top to bottom: pink (sexuality),
red(life),
orange (healing),
yellow (sunlight),
green (nature),
turquoise (magic),
indigo/blue (serenity),
violet (spirit).
Within a year, the flag had shed two of its stripes—pink and violet. According to Gilbert, they "ran out of pink dye."
The violet stripe was later taken out to create an even number of stripes on the flag.
Current Flag Used
The rainbow is a symbol of gay pride, as opposed to gay liberation, which used the pink triangle on various colored fields
The plain 6 stripes does seem to be the flag of choice over the world and probably so for a simple reason of recognition: the flag is often use to mark gay friendly (and in some place, gay safe) establishment so you want to be sure that your target clientele will recognise you.
The rainbow flag has become the easily-recognized colors of pride for the gay community. The multicultural symbolism of the rainbow is nothing new and it plays a part in many myths and stories related to gender and sexuality issues in Greek, Native American, African, and other cultures.
* red: light;
* orange: healing;
* yellow: sun;
* green: calmness;
* blue: art;
* lilac: the spirit;
In San Francisco, the Rainbow Flag is everywhere: it can be seen hanging from apartment windows throughout the city (most notably in the Castro district), local bars frequently display the flag, and Rainbow Flag banners are hung from lampposts on Market Street (San Francisco’s main avenue) throughout Pride Month. Visiting the city, one can not help but feel a tremendous sense of pride at seeing this powerful symbol displayed so prominently.
Although the Rainbow Flag was initially used as a symbol of pride only in San Francisco, it has received increased visibility in recent years. Today, it is a frequent sight in a number of other cities as well — New York, West Hollywood, and Amsterdam, among them. Even in the Twin Cities, the flag seems to be gaining in popularity. Indeed, the Rainbow Flag reminds us that ours is a diverse community — composed of people with a variety of individual tastes of which we should all be proud.
It is interesting to note that the flag’s colors are used for many other items also, such as mugs, beach towels, tee-shirts etc. for sale in souvenir shops. Sometimes the actual flag is reproduced and sometimes the colors are used for non-flag design elements, e.g. a tee-short with six small beach umbrellas embroidered across the front, one in each color of the flag.
Victory over AIDS Flag
This is the rainbow flag with an added black stripe to be aware of AIDS called «Victory over AIDS» flag.
Black: AIDS awareness
The Victory Over AIDS Flag modifies the rainbow flag by adding a black stripe at the bottom. Suggested by a San Francisco group, the black stripe commemorates those we have lost to AIDS. Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a much-decorated Vietnam Veteran dying of AIDS, proposed that when a cure is eventually found the black stripes should be removed from all the flags and ceremoniously burned in Washington, D.C.
Since, many variations of the flag have been created.
There are also variations to represent bisexual people, bears and others.
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