Origin Story of the iconic gay RAINBOW flag

[Jingthing]

I did not know this (and I was there then).

Did you?

I just remember the flag started appearing and that it took off big time.

It was 1978. Anita Bryant, the beauty queen turned conservative activist had just finished her nationwide anti-gay rights crusade. Baker was living in San Francisco, which had become a haven the gay community fleeing less tolerant locales. “It was a wonderful time,” he says. “Harvey [Milk] hadn’t been murdered yet and gay artistic empowerment — you had gay chorus, gay band, gay theater, gay film, all of this stuff — was just flowering.”

It was Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in the states, who invited Baker to make a flag for a gay rights march he was organizing — just months before his assassination that fall. “Because I loved to sew, my role in the movement became to make banners,” Baker says. “That’s really how I ended up making the first flag — I was the guy who could sew it.”

Baker says the rainbow was an obvious choice for him. “Until we had a flag, the symbol for our movement was the pink triangle, which was put on us by Hitler and the Nazis,” Baker says. “The triangle came from a very negative, terrible place. We needed something that expressed our beauty, our soul, our love — that came from us and wasn’t put on us.”

http://www.refinery29.com/2015/06/89702/gilbert-baker-gay-pride-rainbow-flag-creator

Edited June 29, 2015 by Jingthing

[Scott]

Thanks. I often wondered how it came into being.

[Jingthing]

Fast forward to today.

While I totally get what this guy is saying as I am indeed proud to have been involved in some of the earlier stages of the American gay civil rights movement, I can't really feel upset about the current use of the rainbow flag by later comers who had nothing to do with the struggle.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/02/why-you-should-stop-waving-the-rainbow-flag-on-facebook/?hpid=z5

I doubt that most of those 26 million digitally draped rainbow crusaders are active in LGBT rights. They don’t know that, for many of us, gay marriage is a minor win compared to many life-and-death issues facing gay, trans and queer people. How many of them will stand up not only for the victory that’s already been won, but for the much harder battles we still must fight, against homelessness, harassment and HIV, as well as for legal protections against discrimination?

Allies are important to the LGBT community. They’re necessary for progress. But holding up a victory flag without acquiring the battle scars is an empty gesture at best.

The part that I think really matters is I do think probably the majority of Americans think the SCOTUS decision means the gay civil rights movement is over with a final total victory.

Not even close!

But a little pause for mindless celebration ... doesn't really bother me.

[AyG]

It's interesting how quickly and completely the rainbow flag replaced the pink triangle as a symbol of homosexuality.

Any thoughts as to why the pink triangle fell out of favour?

[Jingthing]

It's interesting how quickly and completely the rainbow flag replaced the pink triangle as a symbol of homosexuality.

Any thoughts as to why the pink triangle fell out of favour?

It's explained already in the OP.

That was imposed on gay people by the Nazis and used in death camps.

Next ...

[AyG]

It's interesting how quickly and completely the rainbow flag replaced the pink triangle as a symbol of homosexuality.

Any thoughts as to why the pink triangle fell out of favour?

It's explained already in the OP.

That was imposed on gay people by the Nazis and used in death camps.

Next ...

Sorry, I don't think the article does explain it.

The use of the pink triangle was empowering because it had been used by the Nazis. By using it we showed that we had taken control of the symbol and weren't cowed by the past. This is very much paralleled by the way that gay people (and others) appropriated the word "queer" from the haters who used it against us.

[Jingthing]

Sure, about queer, but I guess you noticed that was kind of a temporary fad and has largely faded as well.

I hear what you're saying but in the long run waving a Nazi symbol is kind of disgusting.

You're free to walk around with a Nazi badge on your clothes if you like. Nobody is stopping you. I think I'll pass.

[AyG]

You're free to walk around with a Nazi badge on your clothes if you like. Nobody is stopping you. I think I'll pass.

Personally, I've never seen a need to change from a green carnation. If it was good enough for Oscar, it's good enough for me.

[Jingthing]

I don't wear Rainbow flags or pink triangles personally.