"As a Christian do I have to keep the television turned off?"

Earlier in the year Medibank launched a new ad campaign called “Health cover for every kind of family and individual”.

The centrepiece of the campaign was a one minute video featuring a diverse cast that reflected modern Australian society.

There are young families, people of colour, people with disabilities, older Australians and same-sex couples. The ad has been viewed nearly half a million times on YouTube.

It’s also one of the most complained about Australian ads of 2016.

Today the Advertising Standards Bureau, who monitor ads and respond to complaints from the public, released their list of the 10 most complained about advertisements of the year.

Topping the list is this ad from Ultra Tune, featuring two women in rubber outfits with the tagline “We’re into rubber”.

The ad received hundreds of complaints. Here’s one example: “The ad is extremely sexual, sexist, demeaning to women and not appropriate especially for prime time viewing.” Most of the complaints were in a similar vein to this one.

Another two Ultra Tune ads were also in the Bureau’s top 10 list.

The Medibank ad was ninth on the list. But why were people so grumpy with it? It’s just a charming, innocuous ad?

“I object to the content of a woman kissing a woman and a man kissing a man and it being portrayed as ‘normal’ family.”

Ah. Blatant homophobia.

Yep, it turns out there are a bunch of Australians out there so angry about seeing same-sex couples on TV they’re willing to draft letters of complaint to the most boring sounding agency in the world: the Advertising Standards Bureau.

Here are some more of the complaints the Bureau received about the ad:

“I am not a prude but I don’t believe this is appropriate. I should be able to explain about people with alternative lifestyles when I feel it is appropriate. I wouldn’t let my young children watch a show with homosexual couples on it, but how am I supposed to censor advertisements? It is totally inappropriate and it pushes someone else accepted values on to my family. As a Christian do I have to keep the television turned off?”

Hot tip: You’re a prude. And a bigot.

You seriously wouldn’t let your children watch a show featuring same-sex couples? What about just individual LGBTIQ characters and actors? That rules out an awful lot of TV and film for the absolute stupidest reason.

If you’re that concerned about contemporary society then yes, I would advise you to turn your television off, and figure out a way to time-travel back to the Middle-Ages.

“I object to advertising showing males kissing males, females kissing females as well as seeing a breastfed baby directly on the nipple of a female.”

Turns out it’s kinda hard to breastfeed a baby without placing it “directly on the nipple of a female”. You’ve written a literal how-to-guide explaining how breastfeeding works. And for the record the ad doesn’t show any nipples, just about 1.5 seconds of footage of a woman breastfeeding.

“Why don’t they have all couples kissing? I have nothing against what other people do behind closed door but I don’t want my young kids seeing this on TV.”

This complaint starts out good… more kissing, who isn’t into that, but then we get more homophobia. What exactly do these people think is going to happen to their children if they see consenting adults making out on TV?

“I don’t want to see two men kissing.”

Dear sir, I am going to find you, and I am going to kiss you.

The Bureau responded to the complaints by “acknowledging that some members of the community might be uncomfortable with images of men kissing men, or women kissing women, but considered that the depictions of kissing in the advertisement are very brief and are not sexualised or shown to lead to any further intimacy.”

The complaints were ultimately dismissed. Good.

If you’re watching TV in 2016 and you see an ad featuring a diverse cast that includes same-sex couples kissing, and that bothers you so much you write dumb complaints to the Advertising Standards Bureau here’s our message: jog the fuck on.