Ideographical analysis of Zach Wahls Transcript<\/p>\n
Good evening Mr. Chairman, my name is Zach Wahls. I\u2019m a sixth-generation Iowan<\/u><\/strong> and an engineering student at the University of Iowa<\/u><\/strong>, and I was raised by two women. My biological mother Terry told her grandparents that she was pregnant, that the artificial insemination had worked, and they wouldn\u2019t even acknowledge it. It actually wasn\u2019t until I was born and they succumbed to my infantile cuteness that they broke down and told her that they were thrilled to have another grandson. Unfortunately, neither of them would live to see her marry her partner Jackie of fifteen years when they wed in 2009. My younger sister and only sibling was born in 1994. We actually have the same anonymous donor, so we\u2019re full siblings, which is really cool for me. I guess the point is that my family<\/u><\/strong> really isn\u2019t so different from any other Iowa<\/u><\/strong> family<\/u><\/strong>. When I\u2019m home, we go to church together. We eat dinner, we go on vacations. But, we have our hard times too; we get in fights. My mom, Terry, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000. It is a devastating disease that put her in a wheelchair, so you know, we\u2019ve had our struggles. But we\u2019re Iowans<\/u><\/strong>. We don\u2019t expect anyone to solve our problems for us. We\u2019ll fight our own battles. We just hope for equal and fair treatmen<\/u><\/strong>t for our government.<\/p>\n
Being a student at the University of Iowa<\/u><\/strong>, the topic of same sex marriage comes up quite frequently in class discussions. The question always comes down to, \u201cCan gays even raise kids?\u201d And the conversation gets quiet for a moment, because most people don\u2019t really have an answer. And then I raise my hand and say, \u201cWell actually, I was raised by a gay couple, and I\u2019m doing pretty well.\u201d I score in the 99th percentile on the ACT. I\u2019m an Eagle Scout. I own and operate my own small business. If I was your son, Mr. Chairman, I believe I\u2019d make you very proud. I\u2019m not so different from any of your children. My family<\/u><\/strong> really isn\u2019t so different from yours. After all, your family<\/u><\/strong> doesn\u2019t derive its sense of worth from being told by the state, \u201cYou\u2019re married, congratulations!\u201d The sense of family<\/u><\/strong> comes the commitment we make to each other to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us. That\u2019s what makes a family<\/u><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
So what you\u2019re voting for here is not to change us. It\u2019s not to change our families, it\u2019s to change how the law views us, how the law treats us. You are voting for the first time in the history of our state to codify discrimination<\/u><\/strong> into our constitution, a constitution that but for the proposed amendment is the least amended constitution in the United States of America. You are telling Iowans<\/u><\/strong>, \u201cSome among you are second-class citizens<\/u><\/strong> who do not have the right to marry the person you love.\u201d So will this vote affect my family<\/u><\/strong>? Would it affect yours? In the next two hours, I\u2019m sure we\u2019re going to hear a lot of testimony about how damaging having gay parents is on kids. But not once have I ever been confronted by an individual who realized independently that I was raised by a gay couple. And you know why? Because the sexual orientation of my parents has had zero impact on the content of my character. Thank you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Positive ideographs: family, Iowans, equal and fair treatment<\/p>\n
Negative ideographs: discrimination, second-class citizens<\/p>\n
Paradox: the bill is seen as a way to protect FAMILY precisely from GAYS, as if they are opposites. But Zach Wahls contests this bill in the name of protecting<\/em> family: his<\/em> family and others like it. He resolves the paradox by redefining family in a way that absorbs the putative opposition\u2014gay families ARE families. Family is not simply one man + one woman and their offspring but the \u201ccommitment we make to each other to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good times. It comes from the love that binds us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ideographical analysis of Zach Wahls Transcript Good evening Mr. Chairman, my name is Zach Wahls. I\u2019m a sixth-generation Iowan and an engineering student at the University of Iowa, and I was raised by two women. My biological mother Terry told her grandparents that she was pregnant, that the artificial insemination had worked, and they wouldn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"parent":50,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1369","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1370,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1369\/revisions\/1370"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dwrl.utexas.edu\/davis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}