Results: This June Add A Little Rainbow To Your Life

This month is Pride Month, and you may have noticed companies and brands have switched their logos to reflect the LGBTQ+ rainbow. The rainbow has been adopted by the Pride movement since 978, when artist Gilbert Baker, an openly gay man and a drag queen, designed the first rainbow flag. Baker later revealed that he was urged by Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., to create a symbol of pride for the gay community. Baker decided to make that symbol a flag because he saw flags as the most powerful symbol of pride. As he later said in an interview, "Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I say, to get out of the lie. A flag really fit that mission, because that's a way of proclaiming your visibility or saying, 'This is who I am!'". Were you aware of the origins of the Pride Rainbow?

Baker saw the rainbow as a natural flag from the sky, so he adopted eight colors for the stripes, each color with its own meaning (hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit). The first versions of the rainbow flag were flown on June 25, 1978, for the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade. It was not until 1994 that the rainbow flag was truly established as the symbol for LGBTQ+ pride. That year Baker made a mile-long version for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Now the rainbow flag is an international symbol for LGBTQ+ pride and can be seen flying proudly, during both the promising times and the difficult ones, all around the world. Have you noticed more companies and brands turning their logs rainbow in support?

The colors of pink and turquoise had to be dropped because once the flag was mass produced, those colors were not part of the standard flag manufacturer's palette. Over time, the flag has evolved, and changed, just like the movement has evolved and changed. Last year, a redesign of the flag incorporated black and brown representing people of color, as well as pink, white, and blue stripes in a nod to the Trans Pride banner. The flag was designed by Portland, Oregon-based artist Daniel Quasar in 2018 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Have you seen this new version of the Pride flag?

When a small Texas bakery made rainbow-themed cookies to celebrate Pride Month, there was a swift backlash. On June 2, Confections, a tiny store in Lufkin, Tex., shared a photo on its Facebook page of heart-shaped rainbow sugar cookies with the caption, "More LOVE. Less hate. Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ friends! All lovers of cookies and happiness are welcome here." However, the post initially received some hateful reactions and a customer cancelled a large order, which was quite a loss for a small bakery. However, it turned out, that the negative reactions were far outweighed by the positive. On their Facebook page, Confections reported that people were donating money and were coming in to buy their sweets, to show their overwhelming support. The bakery managed to sell every cookie from the cancelled order and even more. The owners are very grateful for all the love people have been sending and showing. To pay it forward, they then asked for all the donators to donate to animal shelters instead. Are you surprised that some rainbow cookies could create such controversy?