Since then, celebrities ranging from Christine Baranski to Michael Sheen have also unwittingly participated in the inside joke. The meme expanded beyond that one image when, back in February, a young Twitter user named Grace asked actresses Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman to say “Gay Rights!” on camera at a red carpet. In fact, to the fake Jennifer Lawrence’s credit, “Gay Rights!” implies a more coherent political philosophy than “Love is Love.” Around the time of Prop 8, as mainstream LGBT organizations steamrolled years of debates within queer activist circles and threw all their resources behind the fight for same-sex marriage, the bar for “allyship” became so low that you could accidentally step over it on your way to brunch. It’s a photo of Jennifer Lawrence in what appears to be an ad advocating against California’s 2008 Proposition 8 that simply reads “Gay Rights!” The ad is clearly fake (there is even a stray comma after Lawrence’s name) but gestures at something real. There’s one recurring Twitter meme that never fails to make me laugh, even though it can barely be called a joke.
