Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness

Hello Readers!

  A conversation about gender and sexuality is not complete until we address that both of these concepts exist across a scale rather than two definite points.  The world does not only consist of male and female but also many individuals in between that identify themselves with both.  People are all capable of love, and some just choose to love someone of the same gender.  With everything happening in the Supreme Court recently, it seemed appropriate to discuss America’s move towards equality for the LGBT community. Lets take a break from condemning the traditional and social media for spreading hate and talk about how sometimes, it can spread love too. 

  I am both ashamed and happy to say that I found out about the HRC Marriage Equality campaign through Facebook when bulks of my friends changed their profile picture to a red equal sign. Ashamed because as a blogger talking about gender issues I should be more aware and on top of such huge news and happy because if Facebook can teach me something, then it can teach many others out there something too.  I was ecstatic to see that social media was used toward the benefit of mankind instead of spreading cruel humor as usual.  It did not matter whether the people who saw the red equal sign agree or disagree with the campaign, all it matters is that the message is now right in their faces, staring at them across every social media platform and people have no choice but to acknowledge it’s existence.  This campaign successfully raised awareness and spread the word to every social media user out there and I believe awareness is the first step towards positive change.

  I often say a lot of social media users follow trends and simply share or retweet whatever is popular without worry about what messaging they are actually putting out there. And I think that is why this campaign is so genius as it effectively uses these trend followers to their own benefit and as long as the image is trending, it’s working.

  The same could be said for the big firms and corporations.  Many companies were quick to jump on board the Equal Sign train. Companies such as Budweiser, Absolute Vodka and even TV shows like HBO’s True Blood adopted the equal sign as a part of their advertisement. Now if this was any other day regarding any other issue, I would probably make a comment about how advertisers don’t actually care, they’ll just do whatever that sells their product. But right now, I would like to give a big round of applause to these advertisers because thanks to them, the message of marriage equality is more visible than ever.

  Taking a step to change someone’s mind about something can only end in two ways: they agree with you, or they disagree.  When they refuse to change, then you should respect them for that. But on the off chance that they do change their minds, then you have just changed the world for a little better.