SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Actor Ty Burrell from ABC's "Modern Family" is set to headline a fundraiser Thursday in Salt Lake City for gay marriage.

Burrell, who plays bumbling dad Phil Dunphy on the hit show, is lending his celebrity status to help co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays one half of the show's gay couple.

The event is being staged by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and hosted by an organization that Ferguson and his real-life husband created two years ago to support groups that fight to make gay marriage legal.

They will be selling a bow tie called "The Ty Burrell."

The fundraiser comes as gay marriage advocates await a ruling from a federal appeals court in Denver about the constitutionality of Utah's same-sex marriage ban, which a federal judge overturned in December.