GetUp! Australian Gay Marriage Ad ‘It’s Time’ Goes Viral [VIDEO]
Australia's GetUp! community advocacy organization recently released what may prove to be the most-watched gay marriage ad of all time.
In five days, the YouTube video racked up well over two million views.
The idea is simple. A young man smiles and mouths the word hi. Then, he's seen flirting and writing his phone number down for an unseen person behind the video camera. In two minutes, we watch their relationship unfold though the good times and the bad. The man's unseen lover meets his parents, holds him as he cries, and accepts his nervous proposal.
In the end, the camera pans to reveal that the man's off-camera lover is another man.
The video ends with the message: It's time. End marriage discrimination. The words are the only text in the slickly edited ad, set to the dramatic Oliver Tank song Last Night I Heard Everything in Slow Motion.
The campaign went viral over the weekend. An accompanying petition is set to be delivered to Australian officials later this week at the ALP National Conference, where the Labor Party will decide their stance on marriage equality.
We've been pointing to the national conference as a key moment for the party to reconsider its stance on marriage and pave the way for equality, and with only one week to go, we need to do all we can to ramp up that pressure, GetUp! campaigner Paul Mackay said in a statement.
The campaign is aimed at changing the Marriage Act, which currently defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Results of the most recent poll about this contentious issue show that while a slim majority of Australians support the concept, nobody rates it very highly as an issue.
The viral video will run on Sky on Wednesday and is expected to be broadcast on other Australian channels from Thursday to Saturday, depending on public donations. So far, GetUp! has raised nearly $57,000 to put the ad on television.
GetUp! is a not-for-profit organization that receives no money from any political party or the government. It relies solely on funds and in-kind donations from the Australian public.
Watch the marriage equality ad It's time below:
© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.