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Loading ...Make Love, Not War
Happy, groovy birthday wishes went out around the world April 4, when the peace symbol turned 50.
Though we tend to think of the peace symbol as a defining image of America in the 1960s, the symbol debuted in London’s Trafalgar Square, designed by a WWII conscientious objector named Gerald Holtom for a “ban the bomb” protest. The symbol consisted of the flag-signaling symbols for N and D in a sphere to suggest worldwide nuclear disarmament.
In June 2003, just a month after President George W. Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and announced the mission accomplished in Iraq, I watched a band of anti-war demonstrators march through Chicago’s Loop. They carried banners and bullhorns and rainbow flags with peace symbols in the upper left corners, where the stars would be on the old Stars and Stripes.
The demonstrators numbered less than two dozen — the war in Iraq still seemed widely popular among the general U.S. population and not a front-burner issue in the broader GLBT community.
But I think individually many gay activists opposed the war, because they stood contrary to the Bush administration but also because peace is pivotal to the push for freedom and equality, human rights and real democracy.
Last week, as I read about the birth and early years of the peace symbol, I learned also a bit of gay history. Its fitting to see the symbol on rainbow flags — civil rights activist Bayard Rustin is credited with transporting the symbol from the U.K. to the U.S.A. Rustin was a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and an early leader in the labor, civil rights and peace movements. He’s not remembered as a leader in the gay rights movement, but he was gay and a freedom fighter.
As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the peace symbol and the conveyance of the image across the Atlantic, we also observe this month the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an associate of Rustin’s.
Ten years to the date the peace symbol debuted in London, James Earl Ray murdered King on a motel balcony in Memphis.
On the milestone occasions when we reflect on King’s life and death, GLBT civil rights leaders often ask WWMD — What would Martin do?
But perhaps it is more important to think about what King and Rustin actually said about peace and love, hate and violence. “I believe,” King once said, “that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
My pursuit of equality stems from love for my partner and my belief that our love is no less than heterosexual love. My pursuit of equality grows from a yearning for a peaceful existence. My pursuit of equality stems from a belief that we must turn back hatred and bigotry to bring an end to violence. My pursuit of equality involves the belief that so long as hate groups persecute one class of people in this country, we cannot know justice.
So, imagine, we have a lot of work ahead.
Amid all the reflection on the anniversary of King’s assassination, the Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual report on hate in the United States.
The report detailed the activities of 888 active hate groups in the United States in 2007, an increase of 5 percent from the year before. Eight of the identified groups were specifically identified as anti-gay organizations — the Traditional Values Coalition, Abiding Truth Ministries, Chalcedon foundation, Family Research Institute, American Vision, Westboro Baptist Church, Mass Resistance and Watchman on the Walls. But many of the hate groups identified malign multiple peoples — based on race, ethnicity, citizenship and sexual orientation — as they endorse the war. These groups — anti-immigration and anti-gay, pro-war and anti-Semitic, separatist and fascist — have arrived at the intersection of hate and war.
I’m proud of the numbers within our community meeting up at the intersection of love and peace.
Happy birthday, groovy symbol. And peace, love and understanding from the rainbow family.
Though we tend to think of the peace symbol as a defining image of America in the 1960s, the symbol debuted in London’s Trafalgar Square, designed by a WWII conscientious objector named Gerald Holtom for a “ban the bomb” protest. The symbol consisted of the flag-signaling symbols for N and D in a sphere to suggest worldwide nuclear disarmament.
In June 2003, just a month after President George W. Bush landed on an aircraft carrier and announced the mission accomplished in Iraq, I watched a band of anti-war demonstrators march through Chicago’s Loop. They carried banners and bullhorns and rainbow flags with peace symbols in the upper left corners, where the stars would be on the old Stars and Stripes.
The demonstrators numbered less than two dozen — the war in Iraq still seemed widely popular among the general U.S. population and not a front-burner issue in the broader GLBT community.
But I think individually many gay activists opposed the war, because they stood contrary to the Bush administration but also because peace is pivotal to the push for freedom and equality, human rights and real democracy.
Last week, as I read about the birth and early years of the peace symbol, I learned also a bit of gay history. Its fitting to see the symbol on rainbow flags — civil rights activist Bayard Rustin is credited with transporting the symbol from the U.K. to the U.S.A. Rustin was a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and an early leader in the labor, civil rights and peace movements. He’s not remembered as a leader in the gay rights movement, but he was gay and a freedom fighter.
As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the peace symbol and the conveyance of the image across the Atlantic, we also observe this month the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an associate of Rustin’s.
Ten years to the date the peace symbol debuted in London, James Earl Ray murdered King on a motel balcony in Memphis.
On the milestone occasions when we reflect on King’s life and death, GLBT civil rights leaders often ask WWMD — What would Martin do?
But perhaps it is more important to think about what King and Rustin actually said about peace and love, hate and violence. “I believe,” King once said, “that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
My pursuit of equality stems from love for my partner and my belief that our love is no less than heterosexual love. My pursuit of equality grows from a yearning for a peaceful existence. My pursuit of equality stems from a belief that we must turn back hatred and bigotry to bring an end to violence. My pursuit of equality involves the belief that so long as hate groups persecute one class of people in this country, we cannot know justice.
So, imagine, we have a lot of work ahead.
Amid all the reflection on the anniversary of King’s assassination, the Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual report on hate in the United States.
The report detailed the activities of 888 active hate groups in the United States in 2007, an increase of 5 percent from the year before. Eight of the identified groups were specifically identified as anti-gay organizations — the Traditional Values Coalition, Abiding Truth Ministries, Chalcedon foundation, Family Research Institute, American Vision, Westboro Baptist Church, Mass Resistance and Watchman on the Walls. But many of the hate groups identified malign multiple peoples — based on race, ethnicity, citizenship and sexual orientation — as they endorse the war. These groups — anti-immigration and anti-gay, pro-war and anti-Semitic, separatist and fascist — have arrived at the intersection of hate and war.
I’m proud of the numbers within our community meeting up at the intersection of love and peace.
Happy birthday, groovy symbol. And peace, love and understanding from the rainbow family.
