Australia's marriage equality debate has a new talking point with a controversial new 'vote no' television advertisement causing strong reactions across Twitter and gay sex video in bedroomother social media.
Aired on Australian television networks on Tuesday, the Coalition for Marriage-commissioned advertisement depicts three Australian mothers divulging concerns about school programming, especially in relation to LGBTQI inclusive programs like Australia's Safe Schools, if marriage equality becomes legal.
SEE ALSO: It's a race against time to ensure people vote on marriage equality in AustraliaWith more than 100,000 views as of writing (and a staggering number of downvotes compared to upvotes), the ad is currently the third highest trending video on YouTube in Australia, sitting beneath only Taylor Swift's 'Look What You Made Me Do' video and Katy Perry's 'Swish Swish' video. Of course, the comments are disabled on the video.
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Unsurprisingly, the ad didn't go down too well. Many Australians flooded Twitter with less than enthusiastic reactions to the ad.
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The 'vote no' ad comes amid a hotly contested debate over marriage equality in Australia. Conversation picked up in 2004, when an amendment to the 1964 Marriage Act was made by former Prime Minister John Howard, which stated, "Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life." Since then, a casual 22 bills dealing with marriage equality have been introduced into Australia's federal parliament and failed.
Same-sex marriage is not currently legal in Australia, even though, according to Australian Marriage Equality, 72 percent of Australians support it. Marriage equality is legal in 23 countries around the world right now, including Australia's next door neighbour, New Zealand.
Most recently, Australia's government tried to push its marriage equality plebiscite (a public vote on an issue which doesn't affect the country's constitution) through parliament — and failed twice in the past two years.
So, instead Australians will be sent a voluntary postal survey to vote 'Yes' or 'No' for marriage equality in September, but this will be a non-binding, non-compulsory survey run by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (not the Electoral Commission). A 'Yes' vote will result in a conscience vote in Australian federal parliament, while a 'No' result will see no government vote at all take place.
The future remains uncertain for marriage equality in Australia, and you can probably expect more ads like this to come.