First, I am not proud that I am gay. I am proud that I don't live in fear, and that I have been able to take that courageous step
out of the closet and into a very welcoming
LGBT community.
Secondly, I would like to make the distinction between a rainbow and a "gay rainbow". It seems a little petty, but a normal rainbow has seven colors - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, whereas the gay rainbow has only six - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet. Why?
*engages History Mode*
In 1978, the first gay rainbow flag was introduced in the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade. Artist Gilbert Baker designed two prototype flags with eight colors (the aforementioned, plus hot pink and turquoise). These colors each represented some aspect of the LGBT community: hot pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, turquoise for art, blue for harmony, and violet for spirit.
Unfortunately, hot pink was unavailable for commercial reproduction and the flag needed an even amount of colors, so pretty soon hot pink and turquoise were nixed. And thus we remain with the six colors of today.
There are countless variations of these flags. Among them is the "Victory Over AIDS" flag that contains a black stripe at the bottom to honor all of those who have lost their lives to AIDS.
And suddenly I realize that this information was available at rainbow flag.