Social Norm Breaking: Gay Marriage Edition

[ThoseWhoStayUofM]

I originally wrote this in the "Show Suggestions" thread but realized this was a much better place to put it.  That being said,
I'm in a political philosophy class at the University of Michigan.  My prophesor scheduled our class to read Cass Sunstein's book, "Free Markets and Social Justice" but just the segment titled, "Social Norms and Social Roles" (link below).

Cass Sunstein, “Social Norms and Social Roles,” in Free Markets and Social Justice

Even more importantly, she had us read "Bruno Frey, “A Constitution for Knaves Crowds Out Civic Virtues.” The Economic Journal 107 (1997): 1043–53." and Dawes, Robyn, Alphonse van de Kragt, and John Orbell. 1990. “Cooperation for the Benefit of Us--Not Me, or My Conscience,” ed. Jane Mansbridge. In Beyond Self-Interest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Now I know most of you haven't just stopped everything and taken the time to read those big giant walls of text, f*** that.  Hopefully what I'm about to explain will entise you to go and read those texts for yourself though... anyway... 

Today, March 26, 2013, advocates of gay marriage posted large "=" images as their profile pictures.  As they did this, people began to see all of their friends slowly change their picture to this red "=".  As they saw their social group divide into "real faces" and "big honking red "equals sign" images on their screen, they realized they had to make a decision.  They actually have to step out in front of everybody and say what they think about Gay Marriage [bold][double bold]... [triple bold that s**t].  And suddenly, they switched.  I'm writing this at 4:43 so I have no idea what the result of this will be.

If you still don't want to read giant wall monster of text at least read the first two paragraphs of this wikipedia article about how this worked to overthrow a government.  That might get the attention of anarchist libertarians: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution