This is the one about the equality image that flooded Facebook.

Facebook has been a flood of red in the past week since the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of California’s  Proposition 8 which bans same-sex marriage.  This isn’t a political blog, so I won’t waste your time with my opinions on the topic.  Anyone that knows me knows my feelings.

On Tuesday, however, something exciting and interesting happened on Facebook that was completely organic.  Without any sort of prompting by the Human Rights Campaign, Facebook users started changing their profile pictures to a red variation on the HRC’s logo.  If you have Facebook, you’ve seen the image.

Like herpes in a frat house, the image spread quickly and within hours many of my friends had updated their images to show that they support the overturn of Prop. 8.  The organic and unplanned spread of this (admittedly small and simple) political protest interests social-media nerds like me.  Articles about the “lazy internet activist” have yet to be written, but most certainly will be posted on the Queerty and Gawker-type sites in the coming weeks.  And my opinions about what social media has done to political activism have really yet to be formed.

But I wanted to, now that the initial excitement is dying down, document some of what has emerged from the equality meme.  If you’ve seen some that are worth mentioning, please leave the links in the comment section.

Willie Nelson did an interview in the Texas Monthly where he was photographed holding an image similar to the HRC logo, however the painting showed two blunts instead of the equal symbol.  Willie has been a longtime supporter of marriage equality and has written songs about his support (and he has a song on the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack).

Peppermint Patty made an appearance in the first version of the meme that I saw. I snagged this image off of Facebook.  The creator of Peanuts, Charles Shultz, died in 2000 and it’s highly unlikely that the Peanuts copyright owners had anything to do with this version.  Although it has long been rumored that Peppermint Patty is…not like the other girls.

BudLight became the first (of many) companies to go red.  They posted this image on their Facebook page.

At the time of this writing, the image has been shared through the original Facebook post more than 10,000 times.  It has 55,000 likes and almost 2,000 comments.

Martha Stewart Living also posted on their Facebook page an equality image.  Martha, of course, is classy and wouldn’t post some clunky Photoshopped image, though.

Oh no.  This red velvet cake was posted with the caption, “Equality is truly sweet.” And at the time of this writing has over 18,000 shares.  It’s been liked 16,000 times.  And the image has 845 comments (most in support).

Some of my other favorites that have been spread around so much that I don’t know who to attribute them to:

         

The Facebook river of red hasn’t been all pro-gay, however.  Most famously, The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco posted on their Facebook page this image that I screen-grabbed before the archdiocese deleted the image (and the 350 comments – not one of which was supportive):

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