As with most of life's great questions, Wikpedia solves it pretty well. It says in the article that the person who made the first rainbow flag assigned each color a particular quality that they most likely wanted to be associated with the gay community, all of which are listed there. Does that answer your question?
Personally, the rainbow annoys me. Not because it's colourful. Not because it's splayed everywhere. But because they got the sequence of colours wrong! Completely! The physicist in me rankles! RANKLES! However, the artist in me things it looks sort of pretty...
From the link The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community Original eight-stripe version designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978 hot pink: sexuality red: life orange: healing yellow: sunlight green: nature turquoise: magic/art indigo: serenity/harmony violet: spirit Version with hot pink removed due to fabric unavailability. (1978–1979) Six-color version popular since 1979. Number of stripes reduced to an even number to prevent middle color from being hidden when hung vertically on lampposts, indigo changed to royal blue
Thanks for the replies! That's... weird haha. Don't a lot more people embody those traits than just homosexuals?
As far as I'm concerned, nothing. Personally, I like that our rainbow is different, and it's easily discernable for those who know the differences. Many things use rainbows, but our rainbow is recognizable and can be a sort of beacon.
I have a Safe Space pin I found on my college campus, and it resembles a "breast cancer" ribbon, except it has the rainbow on it. I keep it hidden in my backpack kind of like a metaphor for my closeted homosexuality. I agree that the specificity of our rainbow helps set it apart from other rainbow uses, like Lucky Charms. Which reminds me. Remember that commercial where they name all the lucky charms? "Hearts, stars, horseshoes. Clovers and blue moons! Pots of gold and rainbows. And the red balloons!" For a while I thought they were saying "Pots of golden rainbows", which makes little sense. Fun fact about me! Tangent...
"Physical" rainbows have colors in order of their wavelength. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow
Does somebody see something I don't? Because the LGBT rainbow is: RedOrangeYellowGreenBlueViolet or ROYGBV and a rainbow is: RedOrangeYellowGreenBlueIngidoViolet or ROYGBIV. Is it just that the LGBT rainbow is missing colors?
