Persuasive rhetoric and emotional appeals in public speech

¶ … New Struggle

We as a nation find ourselves at a crossroads. The problems and struggles of the twentieth century are far from finished; to many it may feel life we have been marching in place for the past forty years, waiting for a leader to show us the way and a time it I right to head down the path of equality. But as our greatest leaders have taught us, we will find no greater leaders than ourselves, and the time is always ripe to do good works. We are faced with a choice now; the same choice we have faced together for the better part of a century and in a smaller way the same choice we are faced with each and every day by each and every person we meet. It is a choice of perspective. It is a choice of respect. We as a nation can choose to respect our fellow citizens, or we can continue to deny them basic rights and access based simply on ignorance and bigotry.

There is a sizeable segment of our population that experiences this discrimination in a way we thought had been abolished by the March on Washington led by Dr. King so man decades ago. This group of citizens is every day segregated, largely by choice, because the rest of this country has told them they are not welcome. They are seen as something less than fully human; not as perfect as God intended. Does this describe the way blacks have been seen in this country for centuries? Yes. Does this describe the discrimination that many women face every day in there attempts to earn an equal wage? Yes. Does this describe the treatment of any downtrodden segment of any population that can be recalled from the pages of human history. The sad answer is yes. Right now, this describes the plight of the homosexual community. They are barred from marriage an the rights and privileges that marriage entails simply because some people do not like what they do in the privacy of their own homes. They don't like them because of who they are. Discriminating against homosexuality is no different than discriminating against race, gender, age, creed, religion, or any of the innumerable personal details that make us the free and expressive individuals this country's founding principles say we should be. It is just the same.

Why do people feel that this debate is somehow different, that it represents a moral choice? Certainly, it is because the issue involves sex, and we in this nation are embarrassed by the very notion that our genitals are ever involved in pleasure. I will not delve any prurient details; here is no need. It is not necessary to imagine or even be aware of the specifics of a sexual encounter to know whether or not it is our place to judge it. The fact is, most of us would not like the public's eyes on us when engaged in such behavior, and we probably feel that how we express our sexuality in action is a choice best left up to us alone. Our most infallible moral philosophers have taught us that what is true in one situation must be true in all for it to be truly moral. If we do not wish to labeled and assigned rights based on our sexual proclivities and choice of partner, we cannot do it to anyone else and still say with any truth that we live in a just society. If we are honest with ourselves, we can admit that we live in a society of tyranny and oppression. It might not be as blatant a case of civil rights violations as were the Jim Crow laws of the South, and it might be a more complicated issue when it comes to matters of personal faith. In the arena of public affairs, however, it is exactly the same. Either all people are equal, or none are free.

It cannot be the purpose of a democratic government to legislate morality. John Stuart Mill warned us of the danger of a tyranny of the majority -- the situation wherein the bulk of a society's people have made an arbitrary moral determination and proceed to impose on those small factions that do not adhere to the same beliefs. Such tyranny was seen time and time again in all forms of government -- the Inquisition and other instances of religious persecution, the Trail of Tears and other persecutions of Native Americans, even the issue of inter-racial marriage was viewed with such a lens for the bulk of this country's history. When the government involves itself in legislating based on morality, it cannot but help imposing this sort of tyranny. Even without passing judgment directly on the race, gender, creed, or sexual orientation, legislation that limits what these groups are allowed to do carries with it an implicit message that these groups are somehow less than desirable and even less than human. Barring homosexuals from the rights and privileges of marriage is an instance of government involvement in morality, for which there can and probably should never be enough consensus to achieve any democratic action. Our focus should not be on legislating what other people do, but coming to accept, understand, and even respect what others do, even when we would not do the same thing, as long as it is not harming us. Surely, no one can claim that the marriage of a gay couple caused them any direct harm. As long as the participants in an act are wiling and capable of making their own choices, we must let them do as they wish. That is the right that every individual has in their private life.