Experiential Learning #4

Critique on Presidential Address:
“Constitutional Amendment Banning Same-Sex Marriage”
Viewed from: http://www.c-span.org/VideoArchives.asp?z1=&PopupMenu_Name=White%20House/Exec.&CatCodePairs=Issue,WHE;

To tell the truth this is the first time that I have willingly sat down to watch a speech from our president. That probably doesn’t sound too good, but I would like to say that I was actually impressed. Even though I don’t support everything he does, or even the subject of this speech in its entirety, I was impressed with the deliverance of the speech.

The speech was delivered by President George Bush on June 6, 2006 in our nation’s capital, Washington D.C. The specific purpose of this speech was to express his support for a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage. In addition, the thesis statement of the speech stated, “Marriage is the most fundamental institution of civilization and it should not be redefined by activist judges.” We spoke about the difference between the two: specific purpose and thesis statement in class this week. We acknowledged that they were two separate parts of the speech, defined differently, but have some things in common. According to this speech, the specific purpose and thesis statement are related by the overall message being to support the issue of amending the constitution in order to ban same-sex marriage.

When I was evaluating this speech I also noticed that the speech contained all the aspects of the principles of good form. It was simplistic. For example, after greeting his audience he made them aware of the specific purpose of the speech and his view which also happened to be the thesis statement. He didn’t explicitly state which points he was going to make, but he did state them in an orderly fashion throughout the speech, which leads me to the second principle, order. For example, the purpose was proposing a solution so he was right to present the problem directly afterward in his thesis statement. Lastly, each part of the speech received appropriate development. In my opinion the speech had an ascending order balance design, because it seemed as if the bulk of his information and commenting was toward the end of body and toward the beginning of the conclusion. For example, after the introduction and his view were stated he actually got into the definition of the proposed “Marriage Protection Amendment”. He stated it was a constitutional amendment defining marriage as “only of the union of a man and a woman”. He continued with where the policy was aimed, which is at strengthening families, and then he began to state various facts and statistics regarding the consensus of the act: what the public has already decided on, the effect the states have toward the decision, and the challenges of implementing the act. This is where the bulk of the matter comes from. For example, he states in “1996 Congress approved the Defense of Marriage Act”…”President Clinton signed it into law…and since then 19 states have held referendums to amend their state constitutions to protect the traditional definition of marriage.” These are a few examples of how his speech was reinforced with facts and statistics. He also used a bit of “up-to-date” information which also helped reinforce his point. He states, “At this moment 9 states face law suites challenging the marriage laws they have on the books.” Not only does this help the audience understand further into the topic, but it also helps them realize that he has responsible knowledge on the topic. The only other thing that he does not utilize was presentation aids, but I don’t know what he could use as a presentation aid in this type of speech. Even if he had decided to use something to reinforce his message, I don’t know that it would have been that effective; besides the speech was only going on 10 minutes.

Some helpful insight that he provides in the speech is: an exact definition of the Defense of Marriage Act, and the process it takes to amend the constitution. This helped me identify the importance of the public opinion because I had not known that it took so much to amend the constitution. Given he does not write his speeches he still did an excellent job on effectively presenting it. In comparison to the last speech from the President that we watched in class, most of his speeches tend to have both an informative and persuasive perspective based upon them. His conclusion began with his restating both the specific purpose and the thesis following with his concluding remarks: “Support this issue for our country, and the best way is to amend the constitution.”

In regards to his physical appearance he was very impressionable and dignified. He continued to maintain eye contact as in with the other speech. His posture was good and his rate and pitch varied a bit. His pitch varied a little from the beginning, but he tended to sound a little monotone toward the end, but he was able to keep my attention, so it couldn’t have made that much of an effect. Also his rate varied throughout the speech. When he gave examples he tended to talk faster than when he began to reiterate his point and his view is when he slowed down and paused for emphasis.

I choose this speech because it was a speech that took place during the summer semester and also because it is on a topic that I have an opinion. My thoughts on the issue are as follows, I don’t know that I agree with amending the constitution just to keep the “definition of the traditional marriage” consistent. I think people should have the right to choose how they want to live their lives, just like people have the right to choose to do all the other things that affect their lives and the lives of the people around them. An example of this would be smoking. I don’t see the President or anybody else for that matter trying to amend the constitution to include a ban on smoking even though it is among the world’s top killers. My thought is what gives them or anybody the right to dictate the lives of others?