Gay Rights - Movement, Marriage & Flag | HISTORY

Contents:

• GAY RIGHTS

GAY RIGHTS

He was missned to create a flag by another gay in, polician Harvey Milk, for San Francis’s annual pri cisn to enlist Baker proved serendipo, as the ia of a flag to reprent the gay and lbian muny had occurred to him two years earlier. As Baker told the Mm of Morn Art durg a 2015 terview, he had been spired by the celebratns markg Ameri’s bicentennial 1976, notg that the nstant display of stars and strip ma him realize the cultural need for a siar rallyg sign for the gay muny.

And as a stgglg drag performer who was acctomed to creatg his own garments, he was well-equipped to sew the soon-to-be inic the time, the most monly ed image for the burgeong gay rights movement was the pk triangle, a symbol ed by the Nazis to intify homosexuals.

At the top was hot pk, which reprented sex, red for life, orange for healg, yellow signifyg sunlight, green for nature, turquoise to reprent art, digo for harmony, and fally vlet at the bottom for the help of close to 30 volunteers workg the attic of the Gay Communy Center San Francis, Baker was able to nstct the first draft of the now world-renowned rabow flag. SSudnly, they are everywhere: stretched across balni, flappg om r antennas, and pned to at lapels the world over a movg display of solidary wh the muny that was btally terrorised on Sunday after a bigoted asslt at a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida.

Acrdg to the US gay activist Gilbert Baker, who is creded wh creatg the emblem the late 1970s, the ia behd the flag’s bold sign emerged 1976 – the year the Uned Stat celebrated the bicentenary of s pennce as a republic. “Flags are about proclaimg power” – Gilbert BakerIt was agast this turbulent backdrop that San Francis Cy Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person ever to be elected to public office California, enuraged Baker 1977 to vise a unique symbol for the gay muny – an signia of pri pable of affirmg social pennce.

Hypnotised by the talismanic tensy of the US flag and s abily to transmute self art and fashn – om pricey Pop Art patgs by Jasper Johns to gngy nim patch – Baker was drawn to the ceptive simplicy of a field of stacked strip as a symbol for many stched together as flag has appeared around the world memorials for those killed at the mass shootg Orlando (Cred: Getty Imag)In ntemplatg how, precisely, he should revent that pattern, Baker was aware that any sign he produced would pete popular imagatn wh a paful, if rilient, logo by which the gay muny had long been intified.

A equently ced hypothis lks the rabow to the rplennt ra of the actrs Judy Garland, long nsired a gay in (her role the film The Wizard of Oz has yield the lloquial slang-phrase “iend of Dorothy” as a term for a gay man), and to her famo performance of the song Over the wrers have noted that strong bright lours (such as the green rnatn Osr Wil wore to signify his sexual orientatn) have for centuri served as shorthand for homosexualy. Displayed for the first time the Uned Natns Plaza downtown San Francis June 1978, this eight-striped versn was produced by a team of 30 volunteers manerg the washg mach of a public lndromat orr to rse the dye om the fabric and the wi attic space of a gay muny centre, where the dividual strips were ironed and sewn together.

This is the versn that Harvey Milk would have known, if all too briefly, the few short months before he and the Mayor of San Francis, Gee Mosne, were shot to ath Cy Hall on 27 November by a ranged former lleague of Milk’ activist Harvey Milk was killed San Francis Cy Hall 1978 (Cred: Getty Imag)Demand for the rabow flag accelerated the aftermath of the murrs for display at gay pri paras and at events anised honour of the sla champn of LGBT rights.