Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Due to the ice, I was slipping and sliding back from the gym today when I noticed a rainbow flag/gay pride flag proudly prompted in someone’s front window. I mean, if this thing had breast, they’d be perkier than Dolly Parton in a blizzard! Seeing the multi-colored drape did two things to me, made me aware that someone in the house likes gays/is gay/bumps loves sticks or rubs carpets together but it also reminded me of how I dislike that the rainbow flag is the symbol for gays, including me. I decided to research how did the rainbow become the symbol for the entire gay lifestyle–then I could judge, right?

Well, it’s a long story, Lord help us–it’s spicier and more dramatic than Betsy Ross and her flag story–child, I was exhausted after so much reading. But it was noted  that Gilbert Baker hand-dyed the first rainbow flag  as prepping up for Gay Pride on June 25th, 1978. Speculation everywhere claims that he was inspired by Judy Garland’s, Over the Rainbow and went “to town” on the flag’s material. Other rumors say that the multi-colored cloth–that now stands for love, peace and anal sex–What? That’s what God wants–it’s in the bible, originated from another flag–The Flag of the Races–which was also multi-colored–five horizontal stripes from top to bottom which were red, black, brown, yellow, and white–and flew high and proud in the 1960s to symbolize world peace. That flag used colors to coordinate with various races–Oy! They were so smart back then. Click here to see what the colors on the original gay flag stood for.

In 1978, after the assassination of Harvey Milk, the flag was in great demand–child, the gays were like running around going crazy for this flag, it was a movement, it was a testimony of solidarity, strength and color coordination because the original flag that Gilbert Baker created had “hot pink” in it; it was the first stripe on the flag and it stood for sexuality–you know we can’t be gay without announcing to the world we’re sexual beasts —that’s sarcasm–but because “hot pink” wasn’t easily found back then–I guess they failed to look inside Liberace’s house, they dropped the hot pink stripe.

The flag got another make-over in 1979 when it hung vertically from Market Street in San Fransisco. The lamp post from which it hung, hid the middle stripe and the gays thought, “Child–out of sight, out of mind!” So they banished the middle stripe; the turquoise one. Eventually, the indigo colored-stripe was also dropped and changed to royal blue–and that’s how the current gay rainbow flag we see flapping around today came to be–six stripes:  red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

Who am I to judge the gay flag? I’m sure it was designed in the 70s with honor and an objective–but should it undergo another make-over? I mean, if Joan Rivers–who I think is our real symbol of gayness can withstand so many face lifts, why not the flag? I just don’t associate rainbows with being gay–not my kind of gay–I associate the rainbow with their kind of gay. What, you didn’t know levels of gayness existed? You have a long way to go my friend.

If Judy Garland was the inspiration for yesterday’s flag–what would be today’s inspiration and what would it look like? (Should we Lady Gaga it out?) And do we still need a symbol –especially a flag to represent the gays? In a time when we’re fighting for equality and the same piece of the pie, I can’t help but wonder, “Why are we looking for symbols and icons to set us apart?”

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