First Permanent Pride Flag on Federal Land to be Raised on National Coming Out Day

Flag to Fly Permanently Starting October 11th

As Donald Trump and his administration wage war on the LGBT community, activists announced this week that for the first time, a permanent rainbow flag will fly on federal land.

On October 11th, National Coming Out Day, the international symbol for the LGBT community will be hoisted above the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan. The flag will be maintained by the National Park Service.

“It is a victory for our community to have these symbolic colors flying majestically over our Stonewall, designated as a National Monument by President Obama, even as our LGBTQ brothers and sisters are under attack by the current regime in power,” Michael Petrelis, the LGBT activist behind the effort, said in a statement.

The flag will be raised at noon, Newsweek reported, pointing out that it also falls on the 30th anniversary of the March on Washington for LGBT rights in 1987. “On that day in 1987, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to call for an end to discrimination and more federal funding for AIDS research and treatment,” the outlet wrote. “The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfurled and displayed for the first time on the National Mall with 1,920 panels covering a space larger than a football field to commemorate those who had died.”

Gilbert Baker, who created the original rainbow flag at the behest of fellow activist Harvey Milk in 1978, passed away this year at the age of 65.

Gilbert’s original design included eight stripes, each with its own meaning: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for art, indigo for harmony and violet for the human spirit. The design morphed into its current incarnation the following year.

“The rainbow is a part of nature,” Baker told CBS in 2012, “and you have to be in the right place to see it. It’s beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can’t see. That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors… we are all the genders, races and ages.”

To comment on this article and other NCRM content, visit our Facebook page.

If you find NCRM valuable, would you please consider making a donation to support our independent journalism?

Image by torbakhopper via Flickr and a CC license