What's the Deal with the Equal Signs on Facebook?

If you have been on facebook in the past week, you probably noticed many of your friends changing their profile picture the the red equal sign. But why? Well, it's all thanks to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

Last week, two cases concerning same sex marriage were brought to the supreme court: Hollingsworth v. Perry and Untied States v. Windsor. On March 27th, Hollingsworth v. Perry was brought to the court to challenge whether or not Proposition 8 (a California law that restricts marriage to only opposite-sex couples) is unconstitutional. The following day, United States v. Windsor was brought to court to challenges the federal law titled, Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denies gay married couples benefits that are generally given to straight married couples.

In light of these two cases, HRC asked gay rights supporters to "paint the town red," literally. Immediately after their announcement on face Facebook, thousands of people began wearing red and changed their profile picture to a red HRC logo.

Both cases are still going on, but as the court cases continues to persist, the supports of gay marriage continues to grow.

If you want to find out more about how the cases are going, HRC has posted audio tracks of the court cases on their blog here.