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.

We needed something to express our joy, our beauty, our power. And the rainbow did that.

The rainbow flag is a symbol of freedom and liberation that we made for ourselves.

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 is a part of nature, and you have to be in the right place to see it. It's beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can't see. That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors. Our sexuality is all of the colors. We are all the genders, races, and ages.

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

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.

When I was young, they thought I was from outer space. I was the only gay person they probably knew, and they struggled with that. Everybody knew I was gay. They just didn't want to talk about it.