June is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual) Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 (look for my annual blog posting about this important date on the 28th).
Why Pride?
Despite the fact that Pete Buttigieg, an out and proud and well adjusted and brilliantly smart gay man ran a highly successful campaign for President of the United States (remember how everyone said that we no longer have any racism in the United States because a black man was President?), we still have a tremendous problem with homophobia here and around the world. Pride Month is a positive stance against the daily shame, social stigma, discrimination, and violence that the LGBT community still faces not only here in the United States (gay children are routinely kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families, gay kids and teens and young adults are routinely bullied or attacked or beaten and many end up committing suicide because they are told they are sick or going to hell, and many gay men and women are attacked and beaten and murdered--sometimes in their own homes) but especially in unfortunately backward places around the world where gay men and women are routinely tortured and slaughtered--sometimes by government-sanctioned assassins.
Because the LGBT Pride celebration is about the right of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals to exist without being prosecuted, persecuted, or murdered, not about "not being straight."
The rainbow flag is a universal symbol of hope for LGBTQ people around the world. It first flew in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza for Gay Pride Day, on June 25, 1978. It originally had eight colors--two more than today's version--and was designed by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and activist who sewed the whopping 30' x 60' flag by hand. He had been commissioned to design a symbol for the LGBTQ community by his friend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California.
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| Gilbert Baker, heading the Stockholm Pride Parade in 2003. (Credit Fredrik Persson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images) |
Baker died in 2017, aged 65. In a 2015 interview with CNN, here, he revealed the rationale behind the design of the flag. "We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that," he said. "We're an ancient, wonderful tribe of people. We picked something from nature. We picked something beautiful."
https://gilbertbaker.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT)
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