A commercial fighting against same-sex marriage in Australia is attempting to scare parents by claiming marriage equality will negatively impact children in school.

The country's Coalition for Marriage is at the forefront of the "Vote No" campaign, and released an ad ahead of Australia's postal survey on legalizing same-sex marriage that has caused controversy and confusion due to its distorted message.

The spot features a mother claiming that "kids in year seven are being asked to role play being in a same-sex relationship," suggesting that this came about due to the United States' decision to legalize same-sex marriage.

Another woman tries to strike fear in the hearts of parents by declaring that "the school told my son that he could wear a dress next year if he felt like it." This claim, which curiously pivots the argument to gender expression, has already been rebuked.

John Albiston, the principal of the school that the mother was referring to, told AAP that he spoke to her son's teachers after seeing the ad and they all said the comment was never made.

"I think it's very disappointing that she didn't meet with me to explore her concerns," Albiston said. "If we had investigated it with her...she would have realized it wasn't happening."

It's unclear why the ad shifts the argument from consensual marriage between adults to cross-dressing and gender fluidity, but Tiernan Brady, the executive director of the Equality Campaign in Australia, told the New York Times that it's being used as a red herring.

“The people behind this ad know that Australians believe everyone should have the same opportunity to marry, so they are deliberately resorting to misleading people,” Brady said.

Despite anger over the scare tactics in the spot, it has been sponsored by the Australian Christian Lobby, which stated that “if same-sex marriage becomes law, parents will not have a leg to stand on if they don’t want their kids taught radical sex education and gender ideologies.”

Last week, several packages containing white powder that were addressed to the ACL were discovered in a mail room. The substance was found to be harmless, but ACL director Lyle Shelton thinks it was an attempt to scare the group due to their homophobic views.

“We are very disturbed about this. It feels like there are people trying to intimidate us into silence,” Shelton told The Australian. “Our staff has had to endure death threats, we’ve had a car bombing, we’ve had eggs thrown at the office, as well as packages of glitter that keep arriving which our staff don’t open."