Coming to a TV near you: A gay Texas cop and his straight colleagues discussing marriage equality in a new television commercial airing across the state ahead of a federal hearing on gay marriage.
The commercial is part of a $100,000 ad buy in eight Texas media markets – Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Beaumont, Corpus Christi, El Paso, Laredo, the Rio Grande Valley, Waco and Wichita Falls – on Monday and Tuesday, just days before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans hears arguments in a case challenging the Texas marriage ban. That hearing is scheduled for Friday.
The ad features Fort Worth police Officer Chris Gorrie (photo) and colleagues seated at a table discussing gay marriage. It was scheduled to air on Sunday and Monday.
“My partner Justin and I – we live together. Eventually one day we’d like to get married just like everybody else,” Gorrie says in the video. “Freedom is a big deal; the freedom to marry, the freedom to say what you want to say, and the freedom to do what you want to do.”
The ad campaign from Freedom To Marry is part of the group's Texas For Marriage campaign, a grassroots effort launched in November to build momentum for marriage equality in the state.
“Our ad shows Ft. Worth police officers standing up for their gay colleague‘s freedoms,” Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, says in a press release. “With poignancy, they remind Texans that anyone who puts their life on the line to protect other Americans should not be treated unequally or be denied the ability to protect their own family by being barred from marrying.”
[Houston Chronicle | Joe My God]
