SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – In the season finale of the ABC hit ‘Modern Family,’ actor Ty Burrell’s character ends up officiating at the wedding of the show’s comical gay couple.
Burrell’s support for gay marriage extends beyond the scripted show, as evidenced in December when he served as the official witness to an unplanned lesbian wedding at his bar in Salt Lake City when same-sex marriage was briefly legal in Utah.
On Thursday, he’ll once again display his support for making gay and lesbian weddings legal when he headlines a fundraiser in Salt Lake City. Burrell, who plays bumbling dad Phil Dunphy on the sitcom, is lending his celebrity status to help a group backed by co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays one half of the show’s gay couple.
The evening event is being staged by an organization that Ferguson and his real-life husband created to help pay for the legal costs of challenging same-sex marriage bans.
Burrell and Ferguson and his husband Justin Mikita will be joined by the three same-sex couples who sued Utah, their attorneys and representatives from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which has helped handle the legal case.