Chidester 1

Darcie-Lynne Chidester

Professor Biebau

ENG 1010

4 May 2012

Analysis of Sources

In the article, “Why Gay Marriage is Inevitable” author Michael Klarman claims that

same-sex marriage is inevitable. Klaman uses logos to appeal to the audience. Klarman makes a

claim and then supports that claim with statistics. He writes, “The trend in favor of gay marriage

has accelerated dramatically in the last three years. Before 2009, the annual rate of increase in

support for gay marriage was about 1.5 percentage points, but since then it has been closer to 4

percentage points.”

Klaman also uses ethos to appeal to the reader because his article does prove that he does

know the topic he is writing about and that he has done his research to validate his article.

“Opinion polls now consistently show that a slender majority of Americans support gay

marriage. State supreme courts in California, Connecticut and Iowa have ruled in its favor, and

legislators in five states have enacted gay-marriage statues. If liberal judges on state supreme

courts now regularly support gay marriage, liberal justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are likely

to do so as well.”

Klarman fails to use pathos to appeal to the audience. He only uses logos and ethos,

which I believe is his goal because this article isn’t an argument article; it is a statement article

that uses factual evidence to support his claim. He didn’t right this article so someone could

argue against it or to try to persuade the audience to support same-sex marriage.

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In Stephanie Coontz article, “Gay Marriage Isn’t Revolutionary. It’s Just Next,” she uses

logos when responding to the opponents of same-sex marriage who worry that “allowing two

men or two women to wed would radically transform a time-honored institution” by arguing that

“profound revolutions in marriage have already taken place.” Coontz uses the history of how the

meaning of marriage and the different characteristics in marriage have evolved and changed

throughout the years, from “marriage being about property and power rather than love” to “love,

not money becoming the main reason for getting married” to “reconciling the new idea of

married love with a continued claim that husband and wives have completely different roles” to

“no longer having roles due to gender in marriage”. She also states that “People now decide for

themselves who and when-and whether to marry.”

Croontz fails to use pathos in her article but uses ethos heavily. Her whole article is

about how marriage has changed throughout the years and you can truly see how much research

she did for this article. “By the 1940s and 1950s, many state courts were repealing laws that

prevented particular classes of all people from marrying. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled

that it was unconstitutional for states to prohibit interracial marriage. In 1987, it upheld the right

of prison inmates to marry.”

In the third article, “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage,” Theodore Olson uses

logos when stating that “Conservative and Liberals need to come together on principles that unite

us”. To understand what Olson means by “the principles that unite us” he says, “Certainly we

can agree on the value of strong families, lasting domestic relationships, and communities

populated by persons with recognized and sanctioned to one another.” He also claims that by not

legalizing same-sex marriage “We are not living up to the promise of equality.”

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Olson uses pathos to appeal to the reader. The sentence “Even those whose religious

convictions preclude endorsement of what they may perceive as an unacceptable “lifestyle”

should recognize that disapproval should warrant stigmatization and unequal treatment.” really

does appeal to a reader’s emotion.

Ethos is used heavily by Olsen. You can tell he has put a lot of thought into this paper as

well as information, especially lawful information. Many of his arguments are on constitution or

amendments or civil rights, he also uses many historical figures quotes. For example he states,

“During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln eloquently reminded the nation of its founding

principle: “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and

dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” He also uses the quote “We hold

these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their

Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of

Happiness.” when discussing the “Bedrock American principle of equality is central to the

political and legal convictions of Republicans, Democrats, liberals, and conservatives.”

The article, “Why Gay Marriage is Good for Straight America,” Andrew Sullivan uses

pathos throughout the whole article. First he starts with growing up, “When puberty struck and I

realized I might be "one of them," I turned inward. It was a strange feeling--both the exhilaration

of sexual desire and the simultaneous, soul-splintering panic that I was going to have to live

alone my whole life, lying or euphemizing, concocting some public veneer to hide a private

shame.” After talking about the dark time I his life, he tells us about the time when he

experienced the love that he had feared he would never get to have. “I will never forget the

moment I first kissed another man; it was as if a black-and-white movie suddenly turned into

color. I will never forget the first time I slept next to another man--or rather tried to sleep. Never

Chidester 4

for a moment did I actually feel or truly believe any of this was wrong, let alone an "intrinsic

evil," as my strict Catholicism told me that it was. It was so natural, so spontaneous, and so

joyous; it could no more be wrong than breathing. And as I experienced intimacy and love for

the first time as an adult, all that brittleness of the gay adolescent, all that white-knuckled

embarrassment, all those ruses and excuses and dark, deep depressions lifted. “

Next uses pathos in the end of his article when talking about how homosexual love wasn’t any

different than heterosexual love. In his closing statement he says” As more and more people join

us (pro same-sex marriage), they discover that it isn’t about being gay. It is about being human.

Just like being gay is no longer necessarily about being an outsider. It is about being an

American.”