Logos of “Come Out!”

Most propaganda directed towards the gay community has a certain pathetic appeal about it. It is necessary to pull at the heartstrings in some instances in order to maximize the effect texts have on say mothers or family members, anyone who can lend an empathetic hand to the gay rights’ cause. That is not to say, however, that these pieces of rhetoric do not posses any logical appeal as well. The article in “Come Out!” used logic in order to persuade members of the gay community to come out in support of gay rights. The author of this cover article appeals to the logos of the audience by building an argument through reason. He started off his argument by telling the audience that “In New York a homosexual is legitimate as an individual but illegitimate as a participant in a homosexual act”. In doing this the author made it apparent that there is a factual basis behind the plight of gay people; discrimination against the gay community is, in fact, a problem in the real world, not just something dramatized in the media. In the next step of this argument, the author presented a feasible solution to the problem, in that “Come Out!” aimed to gather oppressed peoples into a “cohesive body of people who [did] not find the enemy in each other”. The usage of this argument was purely to appeal to the audience’s logic as it was a simple problem-solution presentation. It is interesting to note that there are statistics to back up the idea that a supportive group of gay people could help the gay community overall. There are reasons why the suicide rate among the LGBT community is so high, and was so in the 1960s as well. Research suggests that intense feelings of homophobia that LGBT members experience cause incredible stress on these individuals, potentially harming their mental stability. A supportive group to stand behind someone in this community is possibly enough to offer some form of stability back into their lives. In order to see this logical appeal, however, much of the pathetic appeal needs to be stripped away.