Taking A Shot For Queer History: Absolut honors 30th Anniversary of the Rainbow Flag

Absolut Vodka is honoring the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Rainbow Liberation Flag created by Seamstress Gilbert Baker. To watch a video by HOMOVISION which interviews Gilbert @ an English pub regarding the new campaign please see Andy's post @ Towleroad. Here is the official press release explaining the three part campaign for Absolut Colours:



The History of the Rainbow Flag
by Steven W. Anderson
copied from Planet Out and originally published
in GAZE known as Lavender Magazine (Minneapolis)

Color has long played an important role in our community's expression of pride. In Victorian England, for example, the color green was associated with homosexuality. The color purple (or, more accurately, lavender) became popularized as a symbol for pride in the late 1960s -- a frequent post-Stonewall catchword for the gay community was "Purple Power." And, of course, there's the pink triangle. Although it was first used in Nazi Germany to identify gay males in concentration camps, the pink triangle only received widespread use as a gay pop icon in the early 1980s. But the most colorful of our symbols is the Rainbow Flag, and its rainbow of colors -- red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple -- represents the diversity of our community.

The first Rainbow Flag was designed in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco artist, who created the flag in response to a local activist's call for a community symbol. (This was before the pink triangle was popularly used as a symbol of pride.) Using the five-striped "Flag of the Race" as his inspiration, Baker designed a flag with eight stripes: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. According to Baker, those colors represented, respectively: sexuality, life, healing, sun, nature, art, harmony and spirit. In the true spirit of Betsy Ross, Baker dyed and sewed the material for the first flag himself.

Baker soon approached San Francisco's Paramount Flag Company about mass producing and selling his "gay flag." Unfortunately, Baker had hand-dyed all the colors, and since the color "hot pink" was not commercially available, mass production of his eight-striped version became impossible. The flag was thus reduced to seven stripes.

In November 1978, San Francisco's gay community was stunned when the city's first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, was assassinated. Wishing to demonstrate the gay community's strength and solidarity in the aftermath of this tragedy, the 1979 Pride Parade Committee decided to use Baker's flag. The committee eliminated the indigo stripe so they could divide the colors evenly along the parade route -- three colors on one side of the street and three on the other. Soon the six colors were incorporated into a six-striped version that became popularized and that, today, is recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers.

In San Francisco, the Rainbow Flag is everywhere: It can be seen hanging from apartment windows throughout the city (most notably in the Castro district), local bars frequently display the flag and Rainbow Flag banners are hung from lampposts on Market Street (San Francisco's main avenue) throughout Pride month. Visiting the city, one cannot help but feel a tremendous sense of pride at seeing this powerful symbol displayed so prominently.

Although the Rainbow Flag was initially used as a symbol of pride only in San Francisco, it has received increased visibility in recent years. Today, it is a frequent sight in a number of other cities as well -- New York, West Hollywood and Amsterdam, among them. Indeed, the Rainbow Flag reminds us that ours is a diverse community, composed of people with a variety of individual tastes of which we should all be proud.

the life and times of gay youth and young adults

I need to also catch up on some interesting news that I have been sitting on for a week:

Royal yes to diversity at Davis Senior High

Gay boys are voted princes of junior event, cheered by fellow students, adults.

By Kim Minugh - Bee Staff Writer

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the royalty of Davis Senior High School's junior class: Brandon Raphael and his prince, Kiernan Gatewood.

For what appears to be the first time in school history, the Davis Senior High student body has elected a gay couple into homecoming royalty. With each boasting a white sash declaring his title as "Prince," the two 16-year-olds rode through the city of Davis Friday afternoon in the school's annual homecoming parade.

They stood in the back of a pickup truck, arm-in-arm, smiling warmly despite the rain.

"People were so excited for us," Gatewood said of the couple's victory, announced a few weeks ago. "We were a little surprised, but Davis ..."

"Is a liberal town," interrupts his boyfriend of four months, Raphael. "Go 10 miles in any other direction and you'll get some other feeling."

Indeed, the news might surprise few in Davis, a city embraced and, at times, mocked for its liberal leanings.

But students and adults cheering on the boys recognized their election as a meaningful milestone.

Lai-San Seto, advocacy coordinator for the San Francisco-based Gay-Straight Alliance Network, said the Davis Senior High homecoming election is not the first case of gay students bucking tradition.

But it remains far from the norm, Seto said.

And usually by the time she hears about such things, they've become a controversy within their community.

"It's a sign that LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people are getting recognized everywhere," she said. "LGBTQ are considered vital members of the school community and are able to participate in school events in the same full way that their straight fellow students are able to."

Seto applauded the Davis Senior High student body for their acceptance -- and the school administration for being "open-minded."

In the weeks since officials announced the homecoming court, there's been no public outcry -- not by campus leaders, not by students and not by the community.

Students said they were encouraged that the election was not an issue for campus administrators. They said they were less surprised that a gay couple would win than they were that officials allowed it to happen.

"I thought the administration would have more to say about it," Raphael said.

Principal Michael Cawley declined to comment Friday on the boys' election, saying only that he hoped to keep the issue "low-key."

Students, however, were eager to talk. They piled atop floats and lined the parade route to show their school spirit, armed with air horns and fistfuls of candy.

Some have been celebrating their friends' landmark victory for days.

"I think it's just such a good thing for our school. Just knowing that the other kids recognize them as a couple and would vote for a gay couple to be prince and prince of homecoming. ... I don't know, I just think it's awesome," said senior Chandler Fox, co-president of the campus Gay-Straight Alliance. "I want people to know about it so maybe it can happen at another school."

Decked out in Davis Senior High's colors of blue and black, sophomore Charlotte ter Haar and two friends agreed that the election was significant because it came straight from the students -- Raphael and Gatewood won in a write-in ballot election.

Couples could campaign for their class titles -- king and queen for seniors, prince and prince(ss?) for juniors, etc. -- but no names appeared on the ballot. Students wrote in their own candidates.

"The students voted for who they wanted to win," ter Haar said.

Parent Lorna Bernard said she was taken aback by the news -- only because in her day, a gay couple stood to be harassed by their peers, not elected.

But Raphael and Gatewood, she said, are "not just accepted, they're popular -- popular enough to be elected as homecoming princes."

And that, she said, is "really cool."

As for the boys, they said they campaigned hard in anticipation of the election. But their goal, they said, was not to make a political statement.

"We wanted to be nominated and win," Raphael said.

Added Gatewood: "Just like anybody else."

source of pictures Michael Allen Jones of the Sacramento Bee