As the gay marriage debate continues to rage in the United States, two gay dads played by Jesse Tyler Fergusonand Eric Stonestreet on ABC’s hit comedy Modern Family could be doing a lot to change hearts and minds.

Greg in Hollywood has an interview with “Modern Family” creator Steven Levitan that talks about this subject. Here are some of the interview highlights:

“I think once people watch the show, those are two characters who are very, very hard not to like and I think that has probably diffused any of the negative energy that people were feeling”.

“We haven’t had much pushback on it,” Levitan said. “There’s always a fringe element that before the show came out, you know, ‘let’s boycott ABC,” and it was probably like 20 guys in a cellar someplace.

Said Levitan: “We have an episode that will air in January in which Jay is with a bunch of his buddies and he runs into Cameron and he introduces him as a friend of my son and Mitchell takes great offense at that. And through dealing with that issue, I think they come to a better understanding. It’s a very funny episode that’s really about something.”

Ferguson is an openly gay actor who previously played a straight character on the CBS comedy The Class while Stonestreet is straight and among his many roles was a recurring part on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.