TOW Post #3 (Visual): Gay Marriage Cartoon

           Currently in the United States, a huge controversial topic is gay marriage. While many states, with Pennsylvania being the newest one, have legalized gay marriage, there are still a significant number of states that have not taken any action towards making homosexual marriage legal. In fact, there are thirty-one states that are currently against this legalization of marriage. Therefore, given the influence by recent news, many cartoons illustrate the pain that homosexual people go through. For example, in the visual provided above, a boy is being told by his own mother that she isn't satisfied with his 'decision'. Being told by your own family member that your way of life is strange, and is honestly a little baffling can be hurtful. I mean what happened to the times where people said family is the one place where you aren’t judged, and you always have someone. Then, in the middle picture, the boy has seemed to grow up a bit by the mustache drawing and the height difference visible. However, his own family is telling him, again, how his way of life is still not understandable. As you can see by the boy's face, he isn't angry about this, but there is an obvious feeling of pain shown by his expressions. Also, since there is a significant difference in looks, we can infer that the artist is trying to create a sort of timeline. This shows the readers how it is taking a while for his own family to accept this, and through that time, the guy probably has nobody to confide in. By using pathos, the artist is able to capture a vulnerable picture and express it to his general audience by emphasizing the pain homosexuals go through. In the last picture, we see the man, fully grown, being rejected by a judge now. Meaning, that he does not have the right to get married, settle down, and live his life like the rest of us. The main purpose of this illustration is to show the suffering that homosexuals go through that we, as people, don’t really see. We judge all we want, but we don’t really understand what it is like, and that is where the main message lies in this visual text.