Rhetorical Analysis: 'The Myth Of The Gay Agenda'

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LZ Granderson is a homosexual male who works as a sports columnist for CNN and ESPN. In his TEDx Talk he addresses various misconceptions people have about the Lesbian, Gay, Bi, and Transgender (LGBT) community, such as discovering oneself and the difficulty of telling other people. Granderson presents himself as a member of the LGBT community as well as an activist for marriage equality. He shares multiple anecdotes and pictures in order to encourage his audience to see that members of the LGBT community are humans that deserve the same rights as everyone else. In his segment, “The Myth of the Gay Agenda,” LZ Granderson describes a life changing experience he had with the movie “Torch Song Trilogy,” which is essentially about a drag queen …show more content…

When he says this, the audience to applaud quite loudly. Many people claim that this is just another item in the gay agenda. He acts as if he is upset because he has been openly gay for a while now and has participated in several pride parades and has yet to see this “gay agenda.” Granderson then says, “..something wonderful happened: I was shopping, as I tend to do, and I came across a bootleg copy of the official gay agenda.” He continues to explain how he has waited for so long for this day and he wants to share it with everybody so no one else has to be confused about it anymore. He warns the audience to be careful because it is evil which earns a delayed chuckle from the audience. Granderson shows a video with Star Wars music playing in the background. On screen, there is a notebook with a rainbow cover and the words, “GAY AGENDA,” written on it. As the notebook opens, it shows the United States Constitution. While this is going on, Granderson is running around on stage, with a lightsaber in hand, pretending to fight off people. When the video and music stops, Granderson exclaims that they should have told him that is was the Constitution all along so he would not have been so confused about …show more content…

He points out the fourteenth amendment which clearly states that there should be no laws that alter the rights of any citizens. Granderson explains that he presented this version of the “gay agenda” to show that members of the LGBT community are not asking for new rights, they only want equal rights like everyone else. He states that the reason he made the majority of his speech funny is so his audience would not feel threatened by the severity of this topic. Granderson talks about how his son is a respectful young man. He says his son does very well in school, is a budding track star, and pray every night before eating his dinner. Granderson says that he would like to think that since his son lives him for the majority of the time, he would like to think that some of it could be attributed to him. Then points out the fact that even if he wanted to, there are some states where he cannot adopt a child due to the fact he is gay. The audiences faces look somewhat painstaking at this point because they are realizing how big of a problem this

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