A commercial published by Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras pokes fun at coming out while featuring a touching message about family acceptance and marriage equality.
Originally featured on BuzzFeed News, the ad focuses on an Australian family celebrating a father’s birthday together as they pass around barbecue sauce. Suddenly, the father’s son announces that he prefers tomato sauce over barbecue sauce. Stricken by his son’s coming out, the father quickly learns to accept his son for his sauce preferences.
The ad also features a quick shot of a gay couple holding hands, with their wedding bands clearly showing. Their appearance at the party suggests that the family was already accepting of their son’s sexuality to begin with.
“I just thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have a family where there’s a gay couple and that’s a total non-event’,” ad creator Armand de Saint-Salvy said to BuzzFeed News. Saint-Salvy hopes the ad will help drum up support for national marriage equality in the Parliament of Australia.
Earlier this month, a Senate committee complained that Attorney General George Brandis’s Marriage Act amendments would allow for same-sex discrimination, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The committee, which has been hailed for its unified effort across parties, may introduce a marriage equality bill “as soon as next month,” the Herald suggests, with co-sponsors from Labor, the Greens, and Liberal senator Dean Smith.