The Rainbow Family of Living Light Returns to the Allegheny National Forest!

I was so happy to learn that the Rainbow Family of Living Light is coming back to the ANF in early July.  I documented their 2010 visit here on my old blog, when they had about 12,000 people camping out in the national forest for a week.  Now, I follow some of their loosely organized stuff on social media.  The Rainbow People?  I like them.  I sympathize with their worldview.  They gather over the 4th of July to pray for peace.  There's a good energy about them...but their lack of structure and leadership can be a little frustrating.  There's currently a pre-meeting in the forest, just off Mayburg Road and south of Dunham Siding, where they're deciding where to hold their annual gathering in just a few weeks.  Who decides?  Just whoever shows up!  "Scouts" are making their cases for various locations within the ANF.  I doubt they'll return to the spot where they met in 2010.  Queen Creek just can't accommodate 12,000 people bathing.  For a view of their 2010 campground, click HERE.  The Rainbows always meet in a national forest, and they say there's a site in New York State that's also under consideration, but the one and only thing that Pennsylvania has and New York lacks is a national forest.  And its own language, Pennsylvania Dutch.  

I drove out to that quadrant of the forest to see what I could see, and indeed, there's a small encampment along Mayburg Road.  I'll be back up here around Independence Day, so I definitely want to go check it out.  I never thought the Rainbows would come back to the ANF.  Locals seemed to despise them in 2010, and we've got disease-carrying ticks.  Even now, various hiking and conservation groups on social media are making subtle criticisms, like, "Beware, if you are hiking with children!  There may be drug use and nudity!"  Please.  Any public beach in Europe has nudity.  And the Rainbows strictly forbid alcohol.  The only drug you'll find at a Rainbow gathering is the one that ought to be legal in this state anyway.  (It's a total embarrassment that we're the last state in the Northeast where recreational pot is still illegal...but that doesn't stop anyone from using it, and it's never prosecuted.)  Why is it that haters so often veil their hatreds in the guise of protecting children?  "A gay couple on TV!?  How will I explain that to my children?!"  Children will just shrug and move on, which is what everyone ought to do.  If social conservatives really wanted to protect children, they'd release the Epstein Files.  Do you really think a child is safer with a pedophile-protecting gun-packing bigot than with a vegan who drove here from Washington State to pray for peace?  

Didn't mean for this post to turn into a rant.  For my 2010 articles about the Rainbow People, click HERE and HERE.  The comments that various Rainbows made on the first post are evidence of their kindness and goodwill.