Six-year-old puts rainbow flags in mailboxes to advocate for SSM

An adorable new video shows Australian kids campaigning for marriage equality with rainbow flags.

Patrick Abboud of SBS Viceland interviewed some activist kids to see what they’re doing for the cause.

One six-year-old boy, Archie, says in the video that he’s putting rainbow flags in local mailboxes to encourage residents to vote Yes.

“All they’re doing is getting married, they’re not doing anything to us,” he says.

Archie’s parents say he asked to fill in the marriage ballots when they arrived so that he could have his say.

Abboud noted that neither Archie nor the other children featured in the video are from rainbow families.

Nine-year-old Eadie, who lives in Tony Abbott’s electorate, is shown writing a letter to the former Prime Minister, calling differential treatment of gay couples “unfair”.

“At my school we are taught not to bully, and you are bullying the [LGBTI] community,” she writes.

The video isn’t all Yes campaigners. Fourteen-year-old Monique, interviewed at a No rally, says she believes in marriage between a man and a woman.

“For a child to grow up they should have a father figure and a mother figure,” she says.

“We still love our homosexual brothers and sisters,” adds Monique’s mother.

“We don’t have to agree with their choices.”

Monique is the only young No campaigner featured. Abboud said there are kids campaigning on both sides, but parents and campaign groups declined to let him interview young members, citing fear of repercussions from marriage equality supporters.

In the video, Abboud leaves the city to meet 14-year-old Jim in rural Bega, NSW, who is campaigning locally for marriage equality by distributing rainbow socks.

Jim is shown approaching some of the town’s older residents and being rebuffed.

He has had plenty of success reaching other people in town, though, and has set up an Instagram using the hashtag #SocksForSameSexMarriage.

“It’s a funny feeling, learning from your kids,” says Jim’s father.

Abboud said he was moved to make the documentary because of the emphasis that has been placed on children during the marriage equality debate.

“’Won’t somebody think of the children’ is a line that’s been put out consistently through the entire campaign,” he said.

“I thought, ‘I really want to know what they think’. Sometimes we think they’re too tiny to have an opinion, but they do, and a lot of times their opinions are really interesting and not clouded by politics.”