The socially elite have their weddings commemorated in the New York Times, and such is the case with Chris Hughes (News - Alert), whose marriage to Sean Eldrige on Saturday was featured in the coveted weddings pages in the Sunday Styles section. But for Hughes, an avid proponent of same-sex marriage as well as the co-founder of Facebook (News - Alert), being among the first to update his status using the same-sex marriage icon for his Timeline, is a tribute to all social classes.

As indicated by the video news clip by MSNBC, Chris Hughes used his status in the past to vocalize his position over equal rights for gays and lesbians. GLAAD has heralded his efforts to support the gay and lesbian community on Facebook. When there was an oversight on the social network to recognize more gender combinations than the bride-and-groom icon allowed, Hughes corrected it, and now the blue groom-and-groom icon, that symbolizes his marriage with Eldrige, is among the first to be used on the site.

Back in February, Facebook added status labels “in a civil union” and “in a domestic partnership.”

In recent years, organizations such as GLADD have used social media as a strategy for countering cyber bullying that was believed to be prolific in high schools and colleges across the U.S. Their efforts were soon demonstrated through massive amounts of messages spreading awareness via Facebook or Twitter (News - Alert). Social media has also been used to hold people accountable for inappropriate public statements, as seen in the case of Carson Daly who later used Twitter to apologize for his anti-gay remark. Also, during the infamous case at Rutgers where a student allegedly committed suicide as a result of being bullied, prosecutors used his roommates’ tweets as evidence of his participation.

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