I firmly believe that people who happen to be gay who wish to parent a child, or children, should certainly be free to do so, but I am hesitant to have my civil liberties and freedoms predicated on the idea of “family” having to include offspring. My husband and I have ZERO desire to have children and yet I would argue that we constitute a family in every other way, or in exactly the way that a married heterosexual couple with no children is considered a family.
Who we choose to have sex with is, essentially, the defining characteristic of what it means to be gay. I prefer to stretch that definition to include whom we also fall in love with, because certainly in my life, the romantic and the sexual have been heavily, although not always, intertwined, and I would argue that this is true for most people. I find it saddening and hypocritical that the gay movement has chosen to ignore the most essential difference in order to gain acceptance at the cost of neutered identity, as if to suggest that even gay folk find our sexuality too abhorrent to openly admit, further legitimizing our stigmatization in the wider world. But, just my humble opinion, but since it is my blog, I say what I want, to paraphrase Eric Cartman of South Park fame.
Coincidentally, this seven stripe version of the flag remains almost impossible to source. I have looked far and wide and cannot locate a vendor for this product. If any reader knows of a source I would be happy to hear of it.
The seven stripe version was very short lived and perhaps that explains the impossibility of obtaining one. After less than a year, the Rainbow Pride Flag was modified yet again to the current six stripe version.
The turquoise stripe was eliminated because in planning to hang the flag vertically from lamp posts on San Francisco’s Market Street in 1979 it was discovered that one stripe would be hidden, or the flags would have to be displayed unevenly, with one side featuring three stripes and the other four. To solve this dilemma, the turquoise stripe was eliminated.
I admit that I am not heartbroken about this change. I fail to understand what “magic/art” have to do with being gay other to further stereotypical ideas about what it means to be gay. I don’t believe in magic, or faeries, and I am not a bit artistic. But then again, I don’t necessarily identify with most of other other colors either, so perhaps the flag is best taken as a whole symbol other than as individual parts.
While the six stripe Gay Pride Flag has been more or less the “official” version since 1979, times change and the symbol continues to be modified in various ways.
One of the more common variations allows gay folk to show their patriotism and national pride through this version of the rainbow pride flag: