The Huffington Post put the map, seen at the right, on its Facebook page on March 29, 2013.

Each area of red on the map shows where someone changed their Facebook profile picture to the Human Rights Campaign’s red symbol for equality. More than 2.7 million Facebook users changed their profile picture on Tuesday, March 26, according to Facebook statistics.

What struck when I looked at this map was the correlation of where the sparseness of red is on the map of red equality signs and where the red is on the map of the slave states, shown on the far left.

Twenty years ago this July, I went to Hawaii to cover the lawsuit that launched the first salvo in the current war over marriage equality, ultimately leading to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Proposition 8 and, this week, arguments before the Supreme Court: Several gay and lesbian couples took the then-extraordinary step of suing the state of Hawaii, claiming gender discrimination because they were denied marriage licenses. The case crashed like a tsunami across the mainland.

City politicians already have voted themselves the richest pension benefits of any city employees, but under a new proposal by Mayor Bob Filner, city politicians will have even more to look forward to once they leave office.

Mayor Filner is asking the City Council to pass an extraordinary law this month to allow former city politicians to "Double Dip" by collecting full city pensions while being eligible to be rehired by the city with full salaries simultaneously.

(Editor's note: Today, the FBI announced that it would investigate the murder of Marco McMillian.)

Marco McMillian was a trailblazer, and the pride of the Mississippi Delta.

Just in his 20s, Ebony magazine in 2004 hailed him as on the nation's 30 leaders under the age of 30. And in his 30s, the Mississippi Business Journal hailed him as one of the "Top 40 Leaders under 40."

But at age 34, McMillian's life was mysteriously cut short.