Notice a little extra red in the blue sea of Facebook the past couple of days?
That’s a new picture shared by the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for LGBT individuals and their allies, which is being used to show support for marriage equality.
Proposition 8, which outlaws same-sex marriages in California, has moved in front of the Supreme Court for review. During this crucial time, Facebook users are finding a way to show support through the social network by sharing this photo and adding it as a profile picture.
The photo is a new take on the HRC’s usual yellow and navy logo, turned red and white to represent love.
Here’s what the HRC said when it shared the photo:
Make sure you wear red to show your support for marriage equality. And make your Facebook profile red too!
The photo has been shared over 65,000 times since being uploaded yesterday morning, and has garnered almost 20,000 likes.
But the HRC isn’t the only spreading the love of equality. Popular gay celebrities Ellen Degeneres and Lance Bass (formerly of Nsync and an attempted space mission) both changed their profile pictures yesterday to show support. Ellen’s new pic has over 60,000 likes, and Lance’s whole Facebook page is dedicated to fighting for marriage equality.
To top it all off, Facebook’s official resource page for LGBT individuals, has also joined in by changing its profile picture to the red equality image.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen political activism take place on social media — SOPA/PIPA, cell phone unlocking, and Arab Spring uprisings all come to mind. This also marks a growing trend of this particular debate, around marriage equality, going down on Facebook. Remember Chick-Fil-A appreciation day?
If you want to show your support for the striking down of Proposition 8, inching a group of minority Americans closer to the equality they have been promised, go ahead and change your profile photo to the one above.
And if that doesn’t feel like enough, the HRC has an online petition here.
Degrading, racist, or violent comments will not be tolerated. Seriously.