Producers of ABC's Modern Family
have a message for Facebook fans clamoring for a gay kiss: “Chillax.”
The response comes as thousands of fans
have joined an online Facebook petition to allow gay television
couple Cam & Mitchell to share an onscreen kiss.
The group Let
Cam & Mitchell Kiss on Modern Family! has attracted over
5,000 fans since going live over the weekend.
The group says: “Cam & Mitchell,
the adorable gay couple on ABC's Modern Family, have not been
shown sharing even a brief kiss throughout the series' first hit
season. ABC isn't afraid of gay characters, so why won't they let
them show some love?”
On the sitcom, teddy-bearish Eric
Stonestreet (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) plays Cameron,
while openly gay Jesse Tyler Ferguson (The Class) is Mitchell.
The couple adopted a Vietnamese baby, Lily, in season one.
The Facebook group appeared after
airing of the May 5 episode titled Airport 2010, in which
Cameron and Mitchell were relegated to a hug after they argued while
heterosexual couple Phil (Ty Burrell) and Claire (Julie Bowen) kissed
and made up.
But in a
statement released Tuesday, producers said an episode is already
in the works that will address the lack of physical affection between
the gay characters, and asked everyone to just “chillax.”
“Cameron and Mitchell are a loving,
grounded, committed and demonstrably affectionate couple and have
been from the beginning of the series. It happens that we have an
episode in the works that addresses Mitchell's slight discomfort with
public displays of affection. It will air in the fall and until
then, as Phil Dunphy would say, everyone please chillax.”