Rainbow Flags

As its name suggests a rainbow flag is a flag that consists of stripes in the colors of the rainbow. But not all rainbow flags available use the primary colors or the traditional rainbow colors, some versions of rainbow flags are just multi colored. The use of rainbow flags throughout history has a long tradition in many countries around the world.

Rainbow flags have long been a symbol for diversity and inclusiveness as well as of hope. The hope goes back to the bible, where through a rainbow god gave the promise to Noah that there never would be such a flood again.

In a German Peasant’s war in the 16th century a rainbow flag and a few other symbols stood for a new era, hope and social change. Even nowadays there are still several uses of rainbow flags, the most commonly known use is as a gay flag. This flag is the so-called gay pride flag.

The earlier rainbow pride flags in 1978 had eight stripes as the gay pride flag colors. The flag evolved over the next couple of years to show first seven and than six stripes. Gay flags in rainbow color have been used to represent the gay community since the early 1970s. The different colors of the rainbow stand for the diversity of gay people. The flag is very often used as a banner in rights marches for the gay. The origin of the gay flag is in the United States and while the history of the gay pride rainbow flag is a short one, the times for the gay movement have been filled with lots of events and changes. The artist Gilbert Baker made the flag popular as the gay and lesbian pride flag in San Francisco in 1978. Gay flags have a certain meaning to every color in the flag. Hot pink for sexuality, red for life, Orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for serenity and violet for spirit. Gay flags are very popular in the western culture as such, but in other countries rainbow flags do also have different meaning.

Other uses for the rainbow flag are as a banner for the Rainbow family, in Italy the rainbow flag stands for peace and cooperation and some Buddhist communities are represented by multi-colored flags.

If you are expressing you sexuality as a gay activist or just like the rainbow flag, there are several ways that the color of the flag can be used. For example there are rainbow flag MySpace layouts to use in you own homepage. Small animated rainbow flags are also available for PC and web pages. For cars there are rainbow flag stickers and for your house, try a rainbow flag photo.