Rainbow Flags: Gay Pride or Noahide?

3 Sivan 5779
the day of the GP Parade...just before the celebration of Matan Torah...

I took this picture the other day from a bus I was riding on. Note flag. - HDG

My gentle readers may remember my participation in the protest against the "gay pride" parades in Yerushalayim and the rest of Israel last August. This year it's in June...today...just before Shavu'oth, the third major holiday in Judaism.

Although this is a major issue, there is more to it than that. We are all becoming disgusted with the rainbow-designed flags flying in our cities, including Jerusalem, because of who and what they represent, rather than their substance. In a generation where "cultural appropriation" is forbidden and condemned, I want to raise a question: Was there a date before which one could do so with impunity? Meaning, "getting away with it."

In the case of the advocacy of same-gender attraction (SGA for short), the time seems to have begun in 1968 or thereabouts. I was in 7th grade (junior high school in those days; today, Americans call it "middle school") and, as young teenagers were wont to do in my day, there was a sorting out of behaviors due to the impact they would have on how we would be seen, gender-attraction-wise. Because at the beginning of that school year, I was still holding hands with my girlfriends, I was asked whether I was a "lezzie" by one of my classmates. I was not altogether familiar with the vocabulary then, but by the look on her face, I knew I had to think about it quickly. I realized that it meant "do you "like" girls?". I said no, and that was the last time I did a thing like that. We were no longer children — but not quite adults, either.

Since then, "homo" has been replaced by "gay." And "lezzie" (lesbian) has remained. And now an answer to my question (you may have more, and better, ones):

How many of my readers know that "gay" has long-standing earlier meanings having nothing to do with SGA? According to Dictionary.com, it holds a definition rendered "older use" as a result: having or showing a merry, lively mood, and there are several other "older use" and "obsolete" definitions. Click on the "see more" link there to see all of them.

In fact, Gay is still a girl's name! (Here's another link just because you should be aware. A comment pertinent to this post is: "This name is almost never given anymore, as the meaning of the word "gay" has shifted in the past 40 years to mean "homosexual" in mainstream speech." (my emphasis - HDG)) But now the search engines want to show you what a "gay" girl's name should be. I had to use the search phrase "a girl named Gay" to get the links in this paragraph. Little did I know that it's been a man's name too. But nothing to do with SGA, any more than Robin, Pat or Chris.

And let's not go into the British names like Beverly, Evelyn, etc...that started out as men's names. If you're curious, look at the prominent men named Evelyn here. The earliest prominent woman on the list above it was born in 1855, where the earliest man was born about 1655. It was normal back then, I suspect, probably more among royals.

In Hebrew, Sharon (pronounced shah-rón) is a man's name, but I know at least two women with that name off the top of my head. We have plenty of other names like that in Israel.

There was a song when I was young that included the words, "happy and gay" and I defy you to find a link to SGA in it. Warning: qol ishah. I Feel Pretty! from the movie West Side Story (1957). Warning: qol ishah.

Could this mean that over the last 40 years the SGA community committed a crime of a kind of appropriation? Could this be a euphemism for "stealing"?

And now, to the big appropriation crime of the millennia and the topic of this post: The rainbow as a symbol, and its use in a flag.

Yes, I mean the millennia - since the time of Noah, the current father of all the nations. See Genesis/Beresheet, parashath Noach.

The rainbow was the symbol G-d gave to Noah to let him know that He would never destroy the world by flood again. And now, it's been appropriated — er, stolen, from the whole world by a small group of people who want to force us to accept them as worthy of normal — no, special — consideration. Do we want to get used to being disgusted by rainbows because of this? Or do we want to take the rainbow back and place it in its proper context among the vast majority of human beings?

Think about that for a while.

Next time I see rainbow flags, I hope the sight will be due to a celebration of Noah, the father of all the nations (yes, including Jews as well! Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are his descendants too.). The whole world will have the choice — and the right — to celebrate.

And rainbow flags will be beautiful for everyone.

Coming up in the month of Heshvan 5780, be"H!