Rhetorical Analysis: Kim Davis Is Not A Patriot

On June 26, 2015, the supreme court legalized gay marriage across the United States; the fight was finally over, or so it seemed. In Kentucky, county clerk Kim Davis would not give same-sex couples marriage licenses on the basis of the fact that it was against her religious beliefs. This story has caught headlines all over and drawn attention from celebrities, politicians, among others, in particular, Time Magazine posted an article on September 7th, 2015. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in his article “Kim Davis Is Not a Patriot,” uses pathos and logos to successfully convince his audience that Kim Davis should not be heralded as a patriot, let alone a ‘national hero.’ Visual examples are used to alter the reader’s opinion so that they associate gay marriage with a good mood/opinion.

(Picture taken on June 26, 2015, after the Supreme Court officially legalized gay marriage nation-wide.)

There are two major reasons that this
The author says that “300 people gathered to support Kim Davis” this turns into an example of logos when he uses the fact that “400,000 people stated their religious preference as Jedi.” This is an important example of logos because the reader will see that although there were 300 supporters, that is irrelevant, there are more supporters for gay marriage than there are for the county clerk. Also, Abdul-Jabbar compares Kim Davis’s situation to her being “no Rosa Parks.” “she’s the bus driver maintaining the status quo of injustice while forcing all the passengers to go where she takes them, not where they want to go.” This is an important analogy and example of logos because the author shows that she should not be honored like we honor Rosa Parks. People associate the bus driver as someone who should have stood up in a time of injustice, and now the author is making them associate Kim Davis with