The rainbow flag is “about proclaiming power”
By John Smeaton | 15 March 2023
This is the eighth in a series of articles, which seeks to assist parents in preparing their children to live as mature Christians in dangerous times. This series began on 18 January 2023 with The goal of education: a timeless message for parents from the Lion of Münster.
According to Gilbert Baker, the artist who created the rainbow flag, the symbol universally associated with the promotion of gender ideology, its purpose is to proclaim “power”. A prominent marketing company, the PR Lawyer explains Baker’s invention of “a flag in simple, bright rainbow colours as a symbol of LGBT[+] pride” in these terms:
“He began the process just before the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976, inspired by the increased number of American flags being flown to mark the country’s 200th birthday. Baker, an artist and drag queen, told the Museum of Modern Art in an interview:
‘I thought that we needed that kind of symbol, that we needed as a people something that everyone instantly understands. [The rainbow flag] doesn’t say the word “Gay”, and it doesn’t say “the United States” on the American flag, but everyone knows visually what they mean. And that influence really came to me when 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.'”
The rainbow flag “proclaiming power” was very much in evidence during the Obama administration, when “the White House lit up the north side of the building with rainbow colours following the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015 that guaranteed a constitutional right to same-sex “marriage”. This “power” was also universally visible on 27 June 2020 when it flew over 10 Downing Street, prompting then Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce on Twitter:
“Today we are flying the pride flag above 10 Downing Street to mark Global Pride — a unique opportunity for people to join together virtually and celebrate pride as one worldwide LGBT+ community.”
A more sinister expression of that power is seen in the The Rainbow Flag Award, which is given to selected schools, such as St Peter’s Catholic Primary School in Warrington, in the archdiocese of Liverpool, whose website proudly exhibits the award. It is presented as a clickable icon which takes the visitor to a PowerPoint presentation featuring the following information:
“During Health and Wellbeing Week, Joe came into St Peter’s and worked with each year group to produce a drama which promoted LGBT. The workshop was tailored to each class'[s] ages. With upper KS2, each class was split into groups and given a situation to act out, including being trangender, gay, lesbian and bisexual. Each group then produced a drama which showed them discriminating against the person’s life choice and then how they should treat someone and be supportive of their life choices and help them to be themselves, after realising that every individual has the right to be who they want to be. At the end of the workshop the class discussed how equality and diversity is an important part of life, and a right that everyone, no matter their orientation, is entitled to. ‘It’s OK to be different! Just because you’re different doesn’t mean you’re not equal!’ ‘Everyone has the right to be happy, no matter what their individual choice is!’”
This amounts to crude indoctrination. Teachers are inculcating very young children with false doctrine that they have no possibility whatsoever, given their age and complete innocence, of their being able to refute with reference to sound doctrine previously taught.
Another slide of the same PowerPoint Presentation is headlined “Helpful Advice” which includes the suggestion: “Contact Proud Trust”. On the Proud Trust website, there is a page which, in a section for young people, provides a completely false representation of Catholic doctrine as well as a page misleadingly caricaturing all those who uphold traditional teaching and natural law with the headline: “Responding to faith-based homophobia”. Professional training is offered on the website including “Practical Tips for Supporting Trans (including Non-Binary) Young People”.
The “power” proclaimed by the gender ideology lobby, and represented by the rainbow flag, recklessly disregards the real spiritual and bodily welfare of young people — including very young children — throughout the world.
Parents, in these unreal circumstances, can receive a healthy dose of realism and draw strength from the unforgettable words of Archbishop von Galen, addressed to the German faithful in a sermon on 20 July 1941 at the height of Hitler’s power:
“Sadly, you cannot spare your children, that noble but as yet unhardened and unformed raw metal, from the hammer strokes of hatred of the faith, hatred of the Church. But the anvil also does its work in forming the metal: let your parental home, your parental love and loyalty, let your exemplary Christian life be the hard, tenacious, firm, immovable anvil, which parries the weight of the enemy’s blows, which continually strengthens the as yet weak power of the young people and confirms in them the holy will never to stray from the path that leads to God …”