I was camping over spring break when I used my smartphone to log onto Facebook and post some photos. As I scrolled down through my feed, I noticed that a number of people had changed their profile photos to the now iconic Human Rights Campaign (HRC) logo.
Having been digitally disconnected for a few days, I asked my partner what it was, and he said that it was in support of the marriage equality case being heard in front of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). As a social media and social movement scholar, I was intrigued by all of the permutations of the image, similar to other Internet memes of social movement moments, such as that of the UC Davis pepper spraying.
When I returned from my trip, I began to follow some critiques of this social media marriage equality SCOTUS campaign, including a blog post, Six things that happened while y’all were pre-occupied with gay marriage,” by Mia McKenzie, who contends that this campaign is narrow, a privilege of the rich, and does not address class and race LGBT inequalities. Continue reading