Ads target marriage ban

Same-sex marriage may be officially and legally dead, but some members of the gay and lesbian community remain angry enough to keep fighting anyway.

One of them is Melbourne video producer Steven King, who has created four television commercials to tell politicians he thinks anti-marriage laws hurt gay and lesbian families.

In one, an old woman battles to keep her house after the death of her partner. In the second, a man talks about not being able to see his partner of 30 years in hospital. A young girl wonders why her adoptive mother has to go away in the third, and the fourth shows an overseas married couple about to be forced apart by discriminatory visa laws.

King says the ads have no political bias -“ they are about expressing anger at both the ALP and the Liberal party for supporting a ban on same-sex marriage.

They’re real people, and real stories, King said.

I’m not a political person, but I was just so incensed by the amendment that I had to do something.

King says it took a phone call from an angry lesbian friend, about $10,000 and a very short amount of time for him to produce the ads. They were originally planned to be a submission to the Senate inquiry into same-sex marriage.

But when he heard the Senate was planning to vote on the legislation before the inquiry finished, he sped up the filming and editing, and flew to Canberra to hand them to politicians two days before the vote took place.

Three state lobby organisations have expressed interest in fundraising to show the ads in the lead-up to the federal election. King is happy for the ads to go public, but wants the content to remain independent.

The Democrats have expressed interest in running it, but I won’t let anyone use them if they plan on adding their political party on it. I’ll offer it to the Greens, I’ll offer it to any independents. Anybody can use it, as long as they don’t change it, King said.