Artist

I was afraid my family would lock me up and give me electroshock. I was a screaming queen.

In 1978, the first flag was organic everything. It did have eight colors: the six colors of the rainbow we see today plus hot pink and turquoise. But pretty quickly on I realized that I would never be able to satisfy the demand for them by hand-dying fabric and these colors.

I decided that we should have a flag, that a flag fit us as a symbol, that we are a people, a tribe if you will. And flags are about proclaiming power, so it's very appropriate.

Flags are about proclaiming power... that visibility is key to our success and to our justice.

That's really how I ended up making the first flag - I was the guy who could sew it.

The reason the rainbow flag endures is because people own it. It means something to them.

A flag translates into everything, from tacky souvenirs to the names of organizations and the way that flags function.

Anita Bryant had the effect of galvanizing the whole gay movement. She was somebody whom everybody could hate. She was easy to hate.

In 1978, when I thought of creating a flag for the gay movement, there was no other international symbol for us than the pink triangle, which the Nazis used to identify homosexuals in concentration camps. Even though the pink triangle was and still is a powerful symbol, it was very much forced upon us.

A true flag is not something you can really design. A true flag is torn from the soul of the people. A flag is something that everyone owns, and that's why they work. The Rainbow Flag is like other flags in that sense: it belongs to the people.

What the rainbow has given our people is a thing that connects us.

My parents and I didn't speak for 10 years. It took a long time to rebuild that relationship.

Flags say something. You put a rainbow flag on your windshield, and you're saying something.

I love going to cities around the world and seeing the rainbow flag, knowing that it's a safe place where I can be myself.

It's not so easy to be gay or even a woman in some places in the world, and in many countries, it's illegal to be gay. You can be put to death. It's a global struggle. A human rights struggle on a global scale.

The rainbow flag is beautiful because it's about love. The Confederate flag is ugly because it's about hate. It's pretty simple from the art level: beautiful versus ugly.

I think the Rainbow Flag will survive forever, primarily because it's the perfect flag, regardless of whatever political meaning it may have or evolve to.

You don't have to live a lie. Living a lie will mess you up. It will send you into depression. It will warp your values.

Vexillography is a very big word! Vexillography is really the high science and art and understanding of flags and their history - the academic word for flag making and heraldry.

I came out because I fell in love. It wasn't a terrible, horrible, damn thing. I was in love with somebody, and I wanted to scream it from the rooftops.