The Flag of Equal Marriage
An evolving protest flag for equal marriage rights in the United States.
“As a gay person, it would represent me very well.”
— Isaac Mizrahi, on Studio 360
The nine stars on the flag represent the states that actively perform same-sex marriages. They're arranged in order of each state's admission into the union.
Massachusetts - #6 - May 17, 2004
Connecticut - #5 - Nov 12, 2008
Iowa - #29 - Apr 24, 2009
Vermont - #14 - Sep 1, 2009
New Hampshire - #9 - Jan 1, 2010
Washington, D.C. - Mar 9, 2010
New York - #11 - Jul 24, 2011
Washington - #42 - Dec 9, 2012
Maine - #23 - Dec 29, 2012
Maryland - #7 - Jan 1, 2013
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The Back Story
in 1902, when the women's suffrage movement was just getting warmed up, the American flag had 45 stars:
Source: Flags of the World
In protest, the suffragists created their own US flag with only four stars, representing the four states1 that allowed women to vote:
Source: The Oldest and Largest Herstory Site on the Internet
This flag flew at the podium of the First International Womens Suffrage Conference in 1902, and it was my inspiration for a re-appropriation of the American flag. Unfortunately, the states that were so progressive regarding women's suffrage in 1902 have state-wide same-sex marriage bans today.
1Why these four Western states? As territories with very small populations, they needed the extra votes of women in order to become recognized as states.
Our Position
We want the Flag of Equal Marriage to be complete, with all 50 stars lit up. We see three routes to marriage equality, as we define it:
- Every individual state could pass a law allowing same-sex marriage.
- The federal government could repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (allowing same-sex marriage at the federal level) and override all state-level bans.
- The term "marriage" could be removed from state and/or federal laws, turning all "marriages" into civil unions in the eyes of the government. PLUS, same-sex civil unions would need to be recognized in all 50 states or at the federal level.
Our protest flag helps you track our progress toward completion of one of these three goals.
A few same-sex marriage resources
- Gay Marriage: The Arguments and the motives: An excellent personal essay by Scott Bidstrup
- LGBT Reddit is a good source for current news on the issue
Inquiries?
The Flag of Equal Marriage by Carl Tashian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you decide where to put the stars?
The stars are positioned from the top left based on the date each state was admitted into the union.
Why are there stripes on this flag? Shouldn't there be fewer stripes since only some of the original 13 allow equal marriage?
The 13 stripes represent the 13 colonies. Since those colonies don't exist anymore, they aren't really relevant to our campaign for marriage equality; but they do help relate our flag to the American flag.
What will you do about the District of Columbia if they legalize same-sex marriage?
We'll represent that change as a new, appropriately dated flag. We date each flag as we go along, with the date that same-sex marriage becomes recognized in a new state or district. We'll also list DC on our website, but unfortunately we can't add a star to the flag because DC is not a state.
Aren't you defacing the American flag? Isn't that illegal?
The Flag of Equal Marriage is not an American flag. It is the Flag of Equal Marriage. We're not defacing anything.
What's wrong with the rainbow flag?
Our flag is part of a movement seated in the greater gay rights movement. The rainbow flag is an important symbol of global LGBT pride, whereas the Flag of Equal Marriage addresses a specific issue—same-sex marriage in the United States. We'd be proud to see the Flag of Equal Marriage fly next to the rainbow flag!