Zach Wahls

This is a fairly popular video on Youtube, but I was just introduced to it recently. The video features Zach Wahls who addresses the Iowa House of Representatives regarding the legitimacy of gay marriage. Wahls seems to embody the ultimate rhetorical man as he lucidly portrays his position within the potential of gay marriage as wholly legitimate. His perfect combination of ethos, pathos, and logos in unfaltering as he wins (in my mind) the attention, respect, and emotion of the audience being addressed. Wahls, being the son of a married gay couple, addresses the exigence of a political and cultural period in which gay people are limited in the freedom of marriage under the scrutiny of law.

Wahls opens the speech with an appeal to pathos in revealing the myopic nature of his grandparents (and the larger scale culture that they are apart of) in hearing the news of their daughter having an artificially inseminated baby with intentions to raise this baby with her significant other. Through this he reveals the struggle that gay people with intent to marry must endure in terms of social relevance. Through his emphasis on humanity through a subjective lens, the opposition of gay marriage is reduced to an immoral position. His somewhat poetic speaking style and word structure reinforces this. He affirms his ethos through his confidence and the inclusion of his personal achievements which include owning a personal business, being an Eagle Scout, being in the 99th percentile of ACT scores, and being an engineering student at the University of Iowa. Revealing this information allows the audience to trust his personal character and gives credence to his argument. The logos portion of his argument is often overpowered by pathos and ethos, but the opposition does not have too much logical credibility in the first place. Maybe this is why ethos and pathos are so important in addressing issues of this type.

Through the presentation of himself as a person full of character and the portrayal of the inhumane attitude that the law takes toward same-sex marriage, Wahls doesn't need hyper-rationalism to make his point across. The logos seems to be apparent within his argument. In the end, Wahls himself serves to embody the logical argument in asking the question: Why can't people who are more than capable of raising a child (like Wahls) be able to marry for love and companionship? The question seems to answer itself after the speech. Ultimately, Wahls is the argument.