[rlmorel]

For a long time, I didn't really know what it meant, but over time I realized it was a liberal symbol, because you always seemed to see it on cars like this one:

[I am bigjohn]

I lived and worked in the CA bay area for years and have watched that symbol “ = “ go from “ silence = death” to it’s current shortened form. I think it originally had something to to with the AIDS situation.