How did the rainbow get changed from being God's promises to mankind to being the symbol of homosexuality?

Question

For centuries, the rainbow was considered a symbol of God's promises to man (after the Great Flood).

So, how did the symbol of the rainbow become the symbol of the gay movement?

MacGor, I'd love to have this symbol be used for more than one representation. Because I started to use it on my avatar when I first started here...until someone asked me if I was gay because that was a gay symbol. Since I'm in a tradtional marriage, I don't want someone to think I'm lesbian or bisexual. It made me feel like I cannot use this as an expression of the hope I have in God as people will misinterpret that symbol to mean something very different from what I believe.

Answer 1

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Religion had nothing to do with it.
The gay community began using the flag in 1978 in the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade. It was borrowed from the hippie movement and black civil rights groups and San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker designed the rainbow flag as a symbol that could be used again and again.
The rainbow flag is still used by new age (hippy) groups to represent the body's chakras but for the gay flag the purple is at the bottom and for the chakra flag the red stripe is at the bottom as red represents the 'base' chakra where the bodies sexual organs are located.
As far as I am aware the Bible was not even considered at this time. The only time a gay symbol has been stolen was in the case of the pink triangle. The pink triangle was used by the Nazis to mark gay men in their extermination camps. The gay community stole the symbol to symbolise our fight for what is righteous - freedom!
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Answer 2

Old Testament...Noah and the Ark...only reference.
And no one went around touting the rainbow as religiously significant until about 20 years ago. So it hasn't been a well-known, publicly displayed symbol for the Christian community for centuries.
As a symbol of the gay movement, it started to be adopted in the mid 1930s with the Wizard of Oz and a young Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow (and yes gays started to be enamored with Judy Garland when she was very young). Then, in 1969, Stonewall brought it together and the song became a theme (Judy Garland died just before Stonewall and some say the passion expressed for her at that time was part of the impetus for fighting back at the Stonewall tavern.)
Isn't there enough room in this world for an iconoclastic symbol to be shared by many?

Answer 3

Random coincidence, two unrelated circumstances where vaguely similar basic symbols were picked up.

It's a friggin' rainbow. It's like butterflies or the sun, natural symbols that have been used by innumerable peoples and cultures throughout all of human history, for vastly different reasons.

In the case of the gay flag, it started out as a multi-colored striped flag, with seven stripes (not a rainbow) and each color representing a different aspect of the community. When the flag became popular, some dyes (like hot pink) were too expensive for mass production, so it was redesigned in the now familiar six-stripe rainbow.

Answer 4

Is there anything that gay people can be permitted [by heterosexuals] to do with our own lives?

As gay people we get complaints for "taking" the word gay; we are told that our sexuality is a choice; instead of lives, we are given "lifestyles;" we are told that God hates us and we cannot be Christians or religious; we're not allowed to marry or use the word marriage; we are told that we need to change into heterosexuals; we are told that we don't experience love--just lust; now we have someone complaining about our use of the rainbow!

At what point will heterosexuals learn to mind their own business and worry about their own marriages, lives and relationships and stop trying to tell us what we can and cannot do? We don't need your permission! If we want to use the rainbow, we will!

Answer 5

The gay pride flag, which was debuted at the 1978 San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade, was designed by Gilbert Baker. It's inspiration came from the black civil rights and hippie movements

Answer 6

You could still wear the rainbow proudly. If anyone asks, you can tell them what it means to you personally. Furthermore, you could also say that it doesn't bother you that the gay community also wears it because they are God's creatures, too! See God in everyone-not just those in your comfort zone.

Answer 7

No, it wasn't just God's symbol. It first got changed as a new era of socialization and happiness amoung other people. Complain about that, will you?

Answer 8

The rainbow is simply a symbol, and I leave symbols to the symbol-minded. Just be yourself don't identify with an object it is not who you are.

Answer 9

rainbowDahlia's link is quite good, I live in the San Francisco Bay area and had no clue about the rainbow flag thing. I thought it was a racial diversity thing...

Answer 10

Wake up, woman...they are one and the same. ! God's covenant with man was to give him happiness, and that means being Gay!