Ads’ straight reach for equality

Gay marriage activists are hitting the mainstream in the latest bid for marriage rights.
With street protests now out of the way, activists are moving online to reach the wider heterosexual community with a series of advertisements to run on The Age’ s website last week.
Australian Marriage Equality and PFLAG Brisbane are behind the campaign.
Four different advertisements will appear online.
This is not the first time gay and lesbian groups have reached out for straight help. PFLAG Brisbane advertised in The Courier-Mail during this year’s Queensland state election and in Victoria, the ALSO Foundation and others placed an advertisement in The Sunday Age rebutting comments made by beyondblue chair Jeff Kennett.
AME spokesman Peter Furness said the advertisements aim to broaden support by encouraging heterosexual same-sex marriage supporters to join the fight.

“Our ads aim to reach out to the 60 percent of Australians who support same-sex marriage, most of whom are heterosexual”, Furness said.
The 60 percent figure comes from a Galaxy poll released earlier this year, which also showed majority support for Australian recognition of marriages conducted overseas.
Recent reports attacking the survey for not canvassing wide enough were refuted by Furness, who said the study was conducted independently and sought views from 1100 Australians from a variety of backgrounds.
“This idea that we simply went down Oxford St and asked people what they think is simply not true and not based on facts,” he said.
The advertisements take web users to the AME website which encourages people to make a submission to the current Senate Inquiry into amending the Marriage Act to include same-sex couples.
Furness said the response on the AME website had already been considerable.