In Elizabeth Birch's speech on Hate Crimes, presented on August 15, 2000 at the Human Rights Campaign, she speaks out about what she believes is right. She begins the speech with the statement, "I am honored to speak here as a gay American." This is an effective attention getting device. The audience is curious to know how her sexual preference is going to tie into the rest of the speech. Her preview statement is about America's family not yet being complete. She is going to tell the audience why it is not yet whole. The thesis is clear, and it leaves the audience interested. The specific purpose of the speech is to speak out as a homosexual about human rights and to encourage voting for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign.
             The speech design used is both the pro-con division and the problem-solution division. Birch would have outlined her speech like this: Examples of Hate crimes (Problem), Government control (Problem), Homosexuality, (Pros of) Al Gore (Solution), (Cons of) George Bush. The content was well chosen, it definitely got the point across. It was suited for the occasion and audience, being a Human Rights Campaign.
             Birch used a number of different kinds of supporting material. She began the speech with different hate crimes, which are actual examples. To show the severity on which the topic she was going to present, she described the way Matthew Shepard, a gay teenager, was killed. Birch also used a statistic to prove her point with numbers, stating that American's can be fired in 30 states on the simple basis of being gay. A third-person narrative was also used in Birch's speech when she talks about her own children in hope that when they grow up they will accept her as a homosexual. Birch did a good job of using an ample amount of supporting material to sustain her arguments. I would not suggest she use any other supports.
             The main appeal used by Birch in this spe...