Saturday, December 8, 2012

19. The Civil Rights Case of Our Generation



Emily Bazelon wrote an article on December 7th about a court case that will take place soon regarding gay marriage. She opens her essay by stating and describing a minor and a major court case about this issue: United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry respectively. The latter case was ruled in the 9th Circuit (a United States court of appeals which included states from the West of the U.S.), and as Bazelon finished writing about the near victory of the side in favor of gay-marriage, she says that supporters of Proposition 8 (against gay marriage) appealed to higher court, the Supreme Court. The author cites a law professor who assured readers that the Supreme Court “will find some middle ground, some way to allow gay marriage in California without forcing it on the parts of the country that aren’t ready” instead of ruling completely for or against gay marriage.

The author’s purpose in writing this article is to inform readers about a soon to take place Supreme Court case regarding one of the most highly debated issues at the time: gay marriage. Although the author explicitly includes her personal views regarding this topic, she does not seem to try to convince her readers to side with her. The tone in this article is definitely informal since Emily Bazelon uses contractions, slangs, first person, and includes her personal thoughts informally. In the beginning and in the end, Bazelon makes an analogy comparing the court case with a large theatre production (“It’s going to be one blockbuster of a history-making year at the Supreme Court”, “a full-dress, five-act opera”, “I can’t wait to watch this megaproduction. I can’t think of a more exciting show.”) Bazelon also uses hypophoras to make her readers to think about some of the possible outcomes of the case’s rulings and quotes experts as a way to present her own opinions (“These are the most significant cases these nine Justices have ever considered, and probably that they will ever decide.”)

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