Ansible: possible to pass a dict to a module?

site.yml

---
- name: Ensure nginx is set up
  tasks:
  - name: Ensure nginx is installed
    apt: pkg=nginx
  
  - name: Ensure nginx.conf is in place
    template: "{{ nginx_template_opts }}"
    notify: restart nginx

vars

---
nginx_template_opts:
  src: templates/nginx.conf.j2 
  dest: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

It's not optimal, but this works:

---
nginx_template_opts: src=templates/nginx.conf.j2 dest=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf