Facebook is showing its support to same-sex couples by introducing new stickers for its Messenger app during the LGBT Pride month celebrations.
Facebook, the biggest social networking site, is joining the celebrations of LGBT Pride month in its own unique style. The social network introduced a new pack of stickers depicting same-sex couples and rainbows in the Sticker Store. The announcement comes less than a week after the U.S. President Barack Obama declared June as the official Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month.
"NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2014 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month," Obama said in his proclamation published in the White House press release, Friday. "I call upon the people of the United States to eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists, and to celebrate the great diversity of the American people."
The month of June will witness celebrations, parades and parties around the country and Facebook wants to be a part of it with its LGBT Pride stickers. In a statement on its site on the launch of LGBT stickers, Facebook said that it is "celebrating Pride by adding these free Facebook Messenger stickers to the Sticker Store. We see this as one more way we can make Facebook a place where people can express their authentic identity."
Facebook has actively supported the LGBT community through its LGBT@Facebook group page and offered 56 gender options on profiles, including trans female, androgynous, and intersex.. The new Pride pack, which bears a caption "Love is universal," includes 28 emoji-like stickers, which feature various same-sex couples and accepting parents and marchers in a Pride parade. The stickers represent the following, a lesbian couple with two children, a football player and his boyfriend holding a balloon, a father embracing his gay son, a disco dancer and more, according to Buzz Feed.
In the US, same-sex marriages are being practiced more widely as it is now legal in 19 states to marry someone of the same gender. According to a PEW research, more than 71,000 same-sex marriages have been conducted in the US, with Massachusetts leading the chart with 22,406 marriages, California with nearly 18,000 and New York trailing with just 12,000 such marriages.
