On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court made an historic ruling, striking down the nearly two-decade old Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional. The act, which defined marriage as strictly between a man and a woman in the eyes of the federal government, was enacted back in 1996. With the ruling, state-sanctioned gay marriages will now be recognized as valid by the federal government – bringing all the benefits of that status with it.
And Facebook is giving users a colorful way to show their pride.
Users can now display a rainbow emoticon in their statuses when they says that they’re “feeling pride.” It’ll look like this:
Facebook first unveiled emoticons in statuses back in April, alongside a bunch of other “acton-based” status options like “Feeling,” “Eating,” “Watching,” “Reading,” and more.
Although Facebook as a company didn’t publicly release a statement in support of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn DOMA, it’s clear that the company, who urged the SCOTUS to do so in an amicus brief, is happy about the ruling.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he was “proud that our country is moving in the right direction” and that he was “happy for so many of my friends and their families” in an update.
According to Facebook, mentions of things related to the DOMA ruling topped 4 million yesterday afternoon.