Google Gay Pride Rainbow Doodle Condemned for Being Hidden

By Daniel Blake, Christian Post Contributor Friday, June 24, 2011

Google, famed for creating “doodles” to celebrate significant events, has been criticized by the gay community for hiding one of its new doodles marking gay pride month.

Throughout June a rainbow pops up alongside the Google search bar – but only when users search for certain "pride-related" terms such as: “gay,” "lesbian," "homosexuality," "LGBT," "bisexual" and "transgender."

A Google email explained: “During the month of June, Google is celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Pride. For some Pride-related search queries, we are showing a rainbow at the end of the search bar.”

However, the gay community has expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the search engine does not show the rainbow for all searches.

Some have said that “hiding” the feature behind only “pride-related” searches has been so Google can avoid criticism from anti-gay groups.

According to Nicholas Jackson writing on “The Atlantic” tech site, by hiding the “pride doodle” Google should be able to “keep the six-color rainbow, a symbol universally associated with gay pride ever since San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker created it 33 years ago, from appearing on the pages of those who are still opposed to gay rights. And keep Google from having to deal with any backlash.”

A Google statement, however, has said: “We enjoy celebrating holidays and special events at Google. As you may imagine, it's difficult for us to choose which events to celebrate on our site, and have a long list of those we'd like to celebrate in the future.”

However, Instinct Magazine has defended Google saying the company "should be commended" for doing anything at all. According to CNN, the magazine has said: “Google has lead the tech industry in supporting our community, and the latest addition to its arsenal of inclusion is a welcome boost in the right direction.”