The German anti-Lutheran leader Thomas Mntzer flew a rainbow flag during the Peasant War to show that God was on his movement's side. The rainbow is an important symbol in the Bible, representing a promise of peace from God to Noah, and some Christian groups have used that symbol in their iconography. Of course, rainbows and rainbow flags carry significance outside the LGBT community. Gay men came out in droves for her performances, and, from World War II forward, many in the LGBT community referred to themselves as "friends of Dorothy," a phrase that seems to have derived from Garland's performance in "The Wizard of Oz." WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 28: A man reaches out to a large rainbow flag which is placed in support of gay marriage in front of the U.S.
Pop culture also gave the rainbow resonance with gay activists, perhaps because of Judy Garland and her signature song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Garland was a major star to the gay community throughout the 1950s and 1960s. How the rainbow became the symbol of gay pride. When San Francisco gay activists marched to protest the 1978 assassination of city supervisor Harvey Milk, they marched with Baker's flags.
Baker later dropped indigo to maintain an even number, and the flag arrived at its contemporary six colors. When he wanted to manufacture the flag for sale, he found that hot pink wasn't as available as the other colors, and so the flag dropped to seven colors. In 1978, San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker designed what is believed to be the first modern gay pride flag by combining eight stripes, each a different color with its own symbolism: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for art, indigo for harmony and violet for the human spirit. The rainbow, however, wasn't popularized as an official symbol of the gay community until the 1970s. Purple also became a popular symbol of gay pride in the 1960s and 1970s, when San Franciscans tried to make a symbol of "the Purple Hand" and gay Bostonians put up posters emblazoned with a purple rhino. According to the book "Sunshine and Rainbows," a study of gay culture in Queensland, "If you wanted to attract the attention of the same sex, displaying a pair of bright yellow socks often did the trick."ĭuring the Holocaust, gay men were forced to wear pink triangles, and that symbol has since been reclaimed by the gay community. Yellow was used for the same purpose in Australia.
Novelist Robert Hitchens described the phenomenon in 1894's "The Green Carnation," and the book in part spurred Wilde's trial for sodomy. Oscar Wilde was famous for wearing a trademark green carnation on his lapel, and the flower is thought to have been used by him and other Londoners and Parisians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to quietly express their orientation. Why is gay pride represented by rainbows?Ĭloseted gay people historically used bright colors to signal their homosexuality to each other. With all the conflicting information out there regarding sexual orientation and bisexuality, figuring out whether or not you are actually bisexual can be difficult.Streets around the world will be decked in rainbows this week as the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community celebrates LGBT Pride Month.