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Rainbow flag creates controversy
Tucker Jankosky
KWCH 12 Eyewitness News
For J.R. and Robin knight, owning a bed and breakfast is everything they've always wanted. "We came here in search of our dreams, my wife always wanted a bed and breakfast and I always wanted a restaurant," says California native J.R. Knight.
But recently their dream has turned into a nightmare, all because of a flag they're flying outside. “It's a rainbow flag - to some people it means friendship to some people it means gay pride," says Knight. But for knight, it was just a souvenir from his 12-year-old son.
Knight says the local Meade newspaper is trying to put him out of business and was frustrated when it ran an article about the flag and did not even bother to contact him regarding why he put it up. In fact, most people we spoke to in Meade said they didn’t even know what the flag meant until the article ran. But once word got around, the reaction was harsh.
Knight says the radio station has called him threatening to remove the restaurant’s commercials if he does not remove the flag. A local pastor stopped by said it was equivalent to hanging women’s panties on a flag pole. When Knight jokingly said he might consider that – the preacher said he would have him arrested.
His business has suffered - down to only a few local customers. The folks in Meade who've boycotted say it's too offensive for them to eat there.
Local resident, Keith Klassen says the flag is a slap in the face to the conservative community of Meade. “To me it's just like running up a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood. I can't walk into that establishment with that flag flying because to me that's saying that I support what the flag stands for and I don't," says Klassen.
Knight says it's not meant to be a gay pride symbol but he doesn't mind if that's how it's taken.
“Any gay or lesbian people that do stop by will be treated with the best service I can give you," says Knight
But despite the local ridicule and loss of business, Knight is determined to stand his ground. “When this rainbow flag shreds, I will buy another one, and another one, and another one - just like my American flag, I'll buy another one."
Knight says his son gave him the flag after a trip to Dorothy's house, a museum about the Wizard of Oz. The flag reminded the boy of "somewhere over the rainbow."
© 2006, Media General, Inc.
http://www.kbsd6.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=KBSD/MGArticle/BSD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149189283448&path=
(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
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This just goes to show you that even the news media is ignorant. The gay rainbow flag is a different color scheme than the regular rainbow flag. There is also a christian rainbow flag with a different color scheme. this is just uterly stupid.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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There was no mention as to a color scheme in the article. How do you know what particular flag was used?
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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If the flag was bought at the Wizard of OZ place, chances are it was just a regular rainbow with rainbow colors. I just really dont think they would have been selling the gay flag there.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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An incredibly sad story, but hardly surprising.
Sorry for being so uneducated, Brian! I'm trying to find something about colour schemes on the net, but all I can find is an interesting Wikipedia article about the rainbow flag, and nothing about a "gay" and a "regular" flag. Can you enlighten me, please?
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Ill get back with you in a few. I have a ribbon that a gay rainbow. The arangement and colors are different.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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Over the Rainbow. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. "Over the Rainbow", music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, is one of the most famous songs of the late 1930s. ... flag is often used as a symbol of gay pride, and the lyrics speak of a better life to come on the other side of that rainbow.
*****
That fabulous Rainbow Flag turns 25 on June 1 of this year. It's getting all its old colors back, and having its very own inaugural exhibit at the San Francisco LGBT Historical Center. Our very own Betsy Ross (without the dowdy powder-blue gown and doily hat, thank goddess), Gilbert Baker, invented, dyed and sewed it himself, gifting it to the world.
*****
Question
Do gay people hold the monopoly on the rainbow?
Sounds like a stupid question, but I'm serious. I am not gay, but I have always loved rainbows, mainly because I love bright colors and rainbows have all of them together. When I was a kid I was always drawing rainbows. I like to wear and collect rainbow stuff... but my best friend, and some other people, say that this "means" that I am gay.
I think that the reason the rainbow is meaningful to gay people is because it symbolizes that all different people... of different races, beliefs, orientations, etc... are one. It symbolizes unity. Gay people are PART of the rainbow that makes humankind beautiful.
I don't know what question I was trying to ask. I guess, do you think only gay people should like rainbows?
(See, I told you it was a stupid question!)
Answer:
not a stupid question first of all  The gay pride flag, which was debuted at the 1978 San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade, was designed by Gilbert Baker. It's inspiration came from the black civil rights and hippie movements.
Each color on the gay pride flag (also known as the rainbow flag) has a different meaning.
RED = Life
ORANGE = Healing
YELLOW = Sun
GREEN = Nature
ROYAL BLUE = Harmony
VIOLET = Spirit
The rainbow is a symbol for the gay community...but it's for everone to enjoy!!
After all, god made the rainbow!
*****
RAINBOW FLAG The Rainbow Flag is now the most widely recognized gay symbol. It was first created in 1978 for San Francisco's Gay Freedom Celebration by Gilbert Baker, with eight colors in horizontal stripes. The original flag contained two more stripes than the six-striped one (red, orange, green, royal blue, violet) now regularly seen. Baker's originally stated intentions for the colors were red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for serenity with nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, violet for spirit and hot pink for sex, but today the rainbow flag is widely embraced as a representation of the diversity of the gay community. Although the gay stereotype still largely holds the image of the young white male, the community is actually comprised of every race, creed, color, national origin, age, religion, sex and disability.
THE ATTACHED FLAG IS LISTED IN FLAG CATALOGS AS THE RAINBOW FLAG.
I would venture a guess that the one purchased at a Judy Garland shop is one and the same as the one for Gay Pride.
Gary
Navyone
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If it was the Christian rainbow flag it is different. One of the colors (I think violet) is not included. Also the colors are aranged different. Ive seen a few of these and I think it was the Chriatina was of fighting back against the gay flag. We will never know unless we go to Kansas and buy one.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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from one of my favorite strips, is on
http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/AccentuateNegative/334142
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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To most people a rainbow is nothing more than a rainbow.......
To many ppurchasing agents a rainbow flag is just a rainbow flag..... Where I buy flags the rainbow pattern is indeed the gay pattern but is listed as "rainbow flag".... nothing is mentioned about any connection with the gay community.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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The wrong side of the rainbow
MIKE HENDRICKS, The Kansas City Star http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/15214572.htm
“Some place where there isn’t any trouble — do you suppose there is such a place, Toto?” Dorothy asked.
And her answer was, of course, “somewhere over the rainbow.”
Which is nowhere near Meade, Kan., where right now trouble is brewing, ironically enough, over just that — a rainbow.
The rainbow flag that flies outside the Lakeway Inn, to be specific.
Or flew there, anyway, until recently.
“A couple of days ago, someone tried to cut it down,” according to J.R. Knight, co-owner of the combination restaurant and bed and breakfast. “There’s just a corner of it left.”
Why would anyone do such a rotten thing?
J.R. presumes it’s because the rainbow has become a symbol of gay pride in recent years.
That’s not why the flag went up outside the Lakeway initially. No, it was simply a gift to J.R. and his wife, Robin, from their 12-year-old son.
The boy recently left Meade, population 1,600, to live with relatives in California. On the way west, they stopped at Dorothy’s House, a Wizard of Oz tourist spot in Liberal, Kan. And soon after, the kid sent a rainbow flag to his parents.
“He sent us this flag letting us know he’s missing us, over the rainbow,” J.R. says.
A sweet gesture, in other words — but what followed wasn’t.
A photo of the flag suddenly appeared in the local paper.
When I asked Denice Kuhn, editor of the Meade County News, why she felt the flag was newsworthy, she declined to comment.
But she and J.R. admit they’ve had run-ins before. So consider that when I tell you the caption with that photo directed readers to a Web site.
And there it was noted that the rainbow had been adopted as a symbol of the gay community.
It also happens to symbolize many other things — equality, diversity, human rights and the Rainbow Girls.
But the connection to gays is what disturbed some folks in Meade.
Jaws flapped. Business dropped off at the Lakeway.
The Christian radio station quit holding its staff meetings in the restaurant, which cost the Knights an advertising outlet. In exchange for free meals, the station had plugged the Lakeway on air as a station sponsor.
“I just told J.R. that we’re a Christian radio station, and this whole controversy is going to give us problems,” station general manager Don Hughes said. “We’d just like to stay out of the controversy.”
But the Knights weren’t about to take the flag down, on principle.
To the preacher who told him the rainbow offended him, J.R. said something like “take a hike.”
To friends who suggested it might be better for business if he reconsidered, the Knights said that would be like admitting that they’d done something wrong.
Besides, they had nothing against gays.
And gays, it seems, have nothing against the Lakeway. In fact, since the story broke last month, this controversy has become a hot topic in the gay community nationwide.
“We’re getting 200 e-mails a day,” J.R. says.
To give financial support to the Lakeway for standing its ground, people out of the area are calling up to rent rooms by credit card with no intention of spending the night.
The southwest chapter of the Kansas Equality Coalition recently booked the Lakeway as the site of their next monthly meeting.
Then there are the flags.
People are sending rainbow flags from around the world.
That way, the Knights will never run out of them.
“I’m never taking it down,” J.R. said.
© Copyright 2006 The Kansas City Star
(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... about the population of Meade. They are homophobic, obviously, though that's hardly unusual in Buttwipe, USA. But, more than that, they are apparently incredibly stupid. A red light is the universal symbol of prostitution - do the locals also remove all the red bulbs from their Christmas lights? To boycott a business because it displays a rainbow flag for reasons wholly unconnected with the gay movement suggests that the average local IQ fails to reach double figures. L. Frank Baum must be turning in his grave.
There are clearly no true Christians in Meade.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Kids Confess To Hotel's Rainbow Flag Theft
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
(Meade, Kansas) Two local boys have admitted to the theft of a rainbow flag that divided a town and led to a series of homophobic attacks on a town hotel.
Until this summer sleepy Meade, Kansas was known only as the home of the Dalton Gang Museum. Now it has the reputation of being a town where homophobia runs rampant.
It all began when the son of J.R. and Robin Knight presented them with a colorful flag he'd picked up in California.
He said it reminded him of the movie "The Wizard of Oz" and the Knights put it up in front of the hotel they run in town.
For some in the community the rainbow was like putting a red flag in front of a charging bull.
As controversy over the flag grew it mysteriously disappeared. The Knights were not about to be cowed, telling the local newspaper they were not giving in to intolerance and would replace the flag - and keep doing so for as long flags disappeared.
Then a brick was hurled through the hotel's front window.
Now a local man has brought his two sons to the Knight's Lakeway Hotel to confess and apologize for stealing the flag.
"They apologized and said they'd replace it," J.R. Knight tells The Hutchinson News.
But Knight says he still does not know who smashed the window. The brick had the word "fag" painted on it. Knight says that the window will cost about $500. Two neon beer signs destroyed in the attack will cost another $1,000 he estimated.
©365Gay.com 2006
(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
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