Yesterday, in my last post, I noted that Jim Jones and his People’s Temple conceptualised themselves as a “rainbow family”, a place where all the races could mingle in harmony and that, further, the interest in the rainbow as a symbol seems to have been associated with the general mood in progressive San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s—a time when Jones formed his church. The rainbow came to mean “gay rights”, but the flag was historically a bit more than that. Think, for example, about the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, once used to interfere with nuclear tests and whale hunts; and remember that when Nelson Mandela was freed, South Africa was talked about as a “rainbow nation”—the symbolism being roughly the same as meant by Jim Jones.
Although the rainbow flag settled down into the symbol for the gay rights movement, today it has, as originally intended, come to mean more than that. Among the earliest moves by the Biden administration was to permit American embassies to fly the rainbow flag. It is more or less the case that Old Glory stands for the root American—the republic—and its European Christian values, whereas the rainbow flag stands for the new America: a sexually liberal, anti-Christian, and multiracial global empire—referred to in right-wing slang as “globohomo”.
It has been a cliché for many years to say that America is divided, but the two nations within geographical America do, at this point, both have different flags: Old Glory versus the Rainbow. When one nation is in power, the rainbow flag flies and it is expanded to include more facilities and buildings, military bases and so on. When the real America is in power, Old Glory flies alone.
As we have seen, from the start the rainbow meant more to the American left than just “gay rights”, but it became to be primarily associated with that movement; today, as the flag acquires more and more colours, even a circle, it seems to have progressed towards being a more generalised symbol for a post-white, post-republic, and post-Christian American empire. The flag is generally know as “the pride flag”, so its symbolism is directly anti-Christian: pride is the worst sin in Christianity, the foundation stone for all other sins—the act that caused Satan to be kicked out of Heaven. So when the US embassy in Vatican City flies a giant pride flag it is engaged in kulturkampf against Christianity; after all, it is a very undiplomatic act to disrespect a central Christian belief at the very heart of Western Christianity; and this is because the American empire is no less fanatical in its anti-Christian beliefs than the USSR—it is not after mere diplomacy, it wants the world to submit to its inverted values.
The rainbow is, of course, also an old Christian symbol; it symbolises God’s covenant with Noah after the flood, so to associate it with pride is a double subversion: pride or hubris leads to war and conflict, so to make the rainbow the symbol of pride is to destroy God’s covenant with man—perhaps such an act will usher in another flood; after all, a substantial group of mankind seems determined to renege on the deal and reject the covenant.
In the deep esoteric traditions, the rainbow is a bridge to God and also represents the Star of David—holistic unity of the masculine and feminine—a symbol, as with the swastika, older than Judaism. So to turn the rainbow into a prideful sign is subversive on a great many levels, even more than an attack on Christianity; it really goes to the sacred core in several faiths, right to the root. It is little wonder that the Iranians refer to America as “the Great Satan”; as with the USSR, she seems to be officially in revolt against God; and it is always the case that hubris—to rise up to the level of the gods—is struck down and punished.