#377: What do colors of ‘gay pride flag’ signify?

Last updated Sep 9, 2018

NP NEWS NETWORK

The Supreme Court on Thursday knocked out the British era law according to which consensual gay sex was a crime and was against the law of nature. But, the decision of SC decriminalizing the law has given a moment of celebration to the LGBT community.

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The LGBT community celebrated the historic judgment in their own grand way. They got on the streets, posted photos and videos on social media with rainbow-colored flags or known as gay pride flags. The internet seemed to be colorful on Thursday when the final verdict was made.

Google India also put out a ‘rainbow flag’ on its homepage. The internet giant, known for its timely theme doodle on various occasions put the colorful icon below the search bar on its webpage.

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The rainbow-colored flags are often seen during the rallies by the LGBT community whether it is the pride parade, any other protest march, celebrations to mark their sexuality or any other festivities. But, what is the significance of the rainbow-colored flags and why is it symbolic to the LGBT community?

How was the flag born?

History has it that the rainbow flag was first designed by American gay icon Gilbert Baker, an army personnel and also an activist, in 1978. Baker, a San Francisco based gay rights activists met another American popular gay icon Harvey Milk who was a politician in 1974.

Milk rode under the first rainbow flags made by Baker at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade in June 1978, just months before the politician was murdered by a former city supervisor, the biography says. It was then that the rainbow flag was first used during the gay parade.

Since then, the flag has seen some changes in the color bands, some have been removed or replaced. Each color of the flag has it owns meaning. The present flag comprises of violet, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

Each Colour says something

Various media outlets define the meaning of the original flag’s colors differently. But according to the Gilbert Baker Estate, pink was for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic, indigo for harmony and violet for spirit.

The rainbow flag has found the wide application on all manner of products. The rainbow flag colors are routinely used as a show of LGBT identity and solidarity. The rainbow colors have become so widely recognized as a symbol of LGBT pride and identity that they have effectively replaced most other LGBT symbols, including the Greek letter lambda and the pink triangle.

One common item of jewelry is the pride necklace or freedom rings, consisting of six rings, one of each color, on a chain. Other variants range from key chains to candles. In Montreal, the entrance to Beaudry metro station, which serves that city’s Gay Village, was rebuilt in 1999 with rainbow-colored elements integrated into its design.