When online 'activism' meets the real world

Something happened on Facebook on Tuesday. You may have seen some of your friends changing their profile picture to a pink equality sign on a red background. That image symbolizes support for marriage equality this week as the United States Supreme Court hears a couple of major cases regarding gay marriage. Hundreds of thousands of people on Facebook are sporting the image; it's gone viral.

I don't usually go along with sharing popular Facebook trends — the site is filled with chainmail-style urban legends, hoaxes and trite slogans. So while I was pleased to see many of my friends make this modest show of online support for equality, I was content to keep my own face on my profile.

Until one of my Facebook friends wrote — in the middle of a sea of pink equality signs — "I don't care if faggots get their rights."

This person isn't an especially close friend; I only bump into them in the real world maybe once a month. I never suspected they felt that way about homosexuality or marriage rights. We'd never discussed the topic. In Montana we tend to keep our divisive opinions to ourselves, respecting the privacy and independence of our neighbors. Live and let live. My friend probably had no idea that I might feel any differently than they do.

Right now in America, 53 percent of the population supports marriage equality — 39 percent oppose it — eight percent are undecided. 61 percent of Americans under the age of 50 show support, as do 73 percent under 30 — time and demographics are on the side of equality, and those positive numbers rise every time a poll is taken as people reevaluate their opinions. The march of history is inevitable.

But that inevitability doesn't mean we should stay quiet on the sidelines, waiting for change to come. You don't need to march in a parade or paint your house like a rainbow to show support. You almost certainly have a gay friend or neighbor, coworker or family member. You may not even realize it because they quietly live their lives the same as you — except that right now, they can't marry the person they love, or experience the legal rights and responsibilities marriage entails.

Is marriage a religious sacrament? Some think it is. Baptism and communion certainly are — I'm glad the state or federal government doesn't tell us how we can or cannot observe those sacraments.

Is marriage a legal contract administered by the government? The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution says that all people have the right to equal protection under the law.

Will gay marriage hurt children? There are already a quarter of a million children of committed gay couples in America. I know a few of them, right here in Havre. They're normal kids with stable families, no different than any other. They're statistically no more likely to be abused or to be gay themselves than any child with straight parents.

So I changed my Facebook profile picture to a pink equality sign on a red background. The Supreme Court won't take a count of Facebook images when they make their decisions. The government won't change any laws because of my online profile. But my gay friends saw it, my straight friends saw it, my friend who doesn't care about faggots' rights saw it. I don't know if we'll discuss it the next time we meet, or if we'll leave our opinions unspoken, but now we know where the other stands. History moves forward.