Rainbow (pronounced reyn-boh)
(1) An arc-shaped spectrum of color seen in the sky opposite the Sun, especially after rain, caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight by droplets of water suspended in the air. Secondary rainbows that are larger and paler sometimes appear within the primary arc with the colors reversed (red being inside). These result from two reflections and refractions of a light ray inside a droplet. The colors of the rainbow are violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.
(2) A similar bow of colors, especially one appearing in the spray of a waterfall or fountain.
(3) Any brightly multi-colored arrangement or display.
(4) A wide variety or range; gamut.
(5) A visionary goal, sometimes illusory (as in “chasing rainbows”).
(6) In DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) politics, as a modifier, of or relating to a political grouping together by several minorities, especially representatives from multiple identity groups, as those identifying variously by race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.
(7) The flag of the LGBTQQIAAOP movement.
(8) In zoology, a descriptor used in some species (rainbow lorikeet, rainbow trout etc).
(9) In baseball jargon, a curveball, particularly a slow one.
(10) In the slang of poker (Texas hold 'em or Omaha hold 'em), a flop that contains three different suits.
(11) In the UK Girl Guide Association (as the Rainbow Guides), the faction containing the youngest group of girls (aged 5-7 years).
Pre
1000: From the Middle English reinbowe & reinboȝe, from the Old English reġnboga & rēnboga (rainbow), from the Proto-Germanic regnabugô (rainbow;
literally rain + bow (arch). It was cognate with the Old Norse regnbogi, the West
Frisian reinbôge, the Dutch regenboog, the German Regenbogen, the Danish
regnbue, the Swedish regnbåge and the Icelandic regnbogi, all of which
translated as “rainbow).
The
Rainbow Flag
The
rainbow flag is more commonly known as the gay pride or LGBTQQIAAOP (usually truncated to LGBTQI+) pride
flag although it has been co-opted for other purposes. It was designed in 1978 by San Francisco
artist Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) using eight colors but has long been displayed with six
stripes, red at the top as it appears in a natural rainbow. The original colors were assigned thus:
Hot
pink: Sex
Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: Sunlight
Green: Nature
Turquoise: Art
Indigo: Harmony
Violet: Spirit
On its
twenty-fifth anniversary in 2003, Gilbert Baker advocated the original design be
restored but there’ was little support, the six-stripe standard clearly
having reached critical mass although there have been one-off variations such
as the addition of a black stripe symbolizing those community members lost to
AIDS. Aged sixty-five, Baker died in New York City on 31 March
2017.
In June 2004, activists from the G & L factions of the LGBTQQIAAOP collective sailed to Australia's almost uninhabited Coral Sea Islands Territory and proclaimed the now liberated lands independent, calling it the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (GLK) with the rainbow flag its official standard. It was a symbolic gesture with no validity in domestic or international law, the declaration in response to the Australian government's refusal to recognize same-sex marriage. Undeterred by such tiresome details, the GLK immediately issued stamps, the official website listing tourism, fishing and philatelic sales as its only economic activities but that swimming, reef walking, lagoon snorkeling, bird-watching, seashell-collecting, and shipwreck-exploring were all GLK sanctioned non-economic activities.
Then Senator Eric Abetz.
Fearing it’s assertion of independence seemed not to be making much impression on the former colonial oppressor, on 13 September 2004 the GLK declared war on Australia. Neither the declarations of statehood or war attracted much attention until February 2017 when, in a Senate estimates hearing on finance and public administration, Senator Eric Abetz (b 1958; senator for Tasmania (Liberal) 1994-2022) objected to the GLK's flag being hung in the Department of Finance’s building on the grounds that (1) government departments should take a neutral stand on political debates and (2) it was wrong to hang in government buildings the flag of an aggressive, hostile state (the GLK) which had declared war on Australia, the comparison presumably that the swastika wasn't hung in the White House or Downing Street during World War II (1939-1945). The finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann (b 1970; senator (Liberal) for Western Australia 2007-2020, minister for finance 2013-2020, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 2021) agreed, assuring Senator Abetz he would ensure “…there are no flags of hostile nations anywhere in any government building.”
Self-described as a "gay 22×-great-grandson of King Edward II (who was also born gay)" and a direct descendant of all English kings & queens down to King Richard III, the emperor traces his family back to the fifteenth century marriage of the Earl of Huntington to Princess Catherine of England. Despite the emperor's illustrious lineage from an age of absolutism and the divine right of kings, the GLK was established as a constitutional monarchy. While the GLK never released details about the extent to which it could be considered a democracy with institutions such as a representative & responsible legislative assembly or an independent judiciary, the spirit seemed not to be despotic. As a new state, the GLK might even have appeared with a system as genuinely novel as monarchical anarchy.
The distinctive colors of the rainbow flag and their simple, geometric deployment in stripes have made the flag a popular design. At the human scale it can be applied to just about any article of clothing and worn as a political statement either of self-identity or an expression of inclusiveness and although the motif can exist at the level of fashion, regardless of intent, the design is now so vested with meaning that probably it's always interpreted as political.
The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, bathed in a rainbow flag projection during a vigil for victims of a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, June 2016.
Bold, horizontal stripes on a rectangle are perhaps uniquely suited to being deployed at scale and can thus be an aspect of representational architecture but even structures in the built environment with little relationship to the straight lines and right angles of the rectangle offer a suitable canvas. Because the stripes can flow across and around even the most complex curves and there's no inherent hierarchy in the significance of the colors, if a treated shape emphasizes some and minimizes others, it matters not because the meaning is denoted by the whole.
The progress flag
The concept of the rainbow flag continues to evolve. Although the text string has been appended as the factions in sexual politics achieved critical mass in acceptability, while the "T" in LGBTQQIAAOP included the trans community, their flags and banners had been separate. One suggestion to achieve more inclusive vexillological recognition was the "progress flag" (sometimes with initial capitals) which in its latest form is defined:
Red:
Life
Orange:
Healing
Yellow:
New Ideas
Green:
Prosperity
Blue:
Serenity
Violet:
Spirit
Black
& Brown: People of Color
White,
blue & pink: Trans people
Purple
circle on yellow: Intersex
The
intersex component was in 2021 interpolated by Valentino Vecchietti, an
activist with the UK’s Intersex Equality Rights movement, building on the
original progress flag designed in 2018 by US graphic artist Daniel Quasar who
had added the five-striped chevron. The
element Vecchietti used was the intersex flag, first displayed in 2013 by Australian
bioethicist Morgan Carpenter, the design rationale of which was the purple and
yellow being positioned as a counterpoint to blue and pink, traditionally binary,
gendered colors, the choice of the circle being to represent “…being unbroken,
about being whole, symbolizing the right to make our own decisions about our
own bodies.” Carpenter has noted that
statement is not an abstraction, non-consensual surgeries still being performed
in many places. The new design reflects
recent internal LGBTQQIAAOP politics which have for some time focused on inclusivity
underneath the broader LGBTQ+ umbrella, the feeling being intersex people have
long been not only underrepresented but also visually undepicted in the Pride
imagery ubiquitous in clothing, events and publicity materials.
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