California state senator Scott Wiener, who is running to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Congress, managed to ignite a social media firestorm after declaring that conservatives are trying to “take back” the rainbow from the LGBTQ movement.
And judging by the reaction, a whole lot of people think he’s got the story backward.
The controversy started when Wiener celebrated a new rainbow-themed light display in San Francisco and posted a message defending the symbol’s connection to Pride Month.
He wrote, “We’re not letting them hijack the Bible to ‘take back’ the rainbow. The rainbow is about Pride. It’s about our beautiful LGBTQ community. And it’s about San Francisco beauty & joy. Happy Pride!”
For millions of Americans—particularly Christians and Jews—the rainbow wasn’t introduced by San Francisco politicians, activist groups, or modern social movements. It’s a biblical symbol that predates every modern political movement by a few thousand years. Wiener framed the debate as conservatives trying to appropriate something that belongs to Pride.
Many responded by pointing to the Book of Genesis, where the rainbow appears as a sign of God’s covenant with Noah after the flood. One of the most frequently cited passages was Genesis 9:13-14, “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.” Regardless of where people stand on modern political issues, it is difficult to argue with the timeline. Genesis has been around for quite a while. Several critics seized on exactly that point.
Journalist Jerry Dunleavy responded, “Senator Wiener, which is older: the Book of Genesis or the gay pride flag?”
In case it’s unclear to anyone – the modern Pride flag dates back to the late 1970s – the biblical reference dates back several thousand years, depending on one’s faith tradition.
The American flag means different things to different people. The cross means different things to different people. Even words change meaning over time. But telling millions of believers that they’re somehow “hijacking” a biblical symbol by referring to its biblical origin was probably never going to end well. That’s where the politics collided with basic history. You don’t have to be religious to recognize that the rainbow existed as a biblical symbol long before modern activism came along. That’s simply a historical fact.
