Colette Brottman

Contributing Writer

Last week I went on Facebook and the first thing I noticed was everyone changing their Facebook profile pictures to red equal signs. I initially ignored it, assuming it was yet another random holiday or something, but later that day, my entire page filled up with profile pictures of equal signs. So I did what most people do and Googled it.

I have been closely following Proposition 8 since we discussed it in my Civil Liberties class during junior year of high school, so to see the surge of activism against it was exciting. It seemed like such a simple act, a quick profile picture change, but perhaps it has more influence than we can imagine.

The Port Huron statement said, “we are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.” Changing something so simple as our Facebook profile picture allows us to acknowledge our discomfort with the state of affairs of our nation. I hope that this trend causes uninformed people to research the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and regardless of their opinion, at least consider the discussion on gay rights.

It is hard to ignore such a trend and hopefully the Justices notice that there is a loud cry from Americans to turn down DOMA.