First published in The New Yorker in 2004, George Saunders’ “My Amendment” was as an actual response from the author, “an obscure, middle-aged, heterosexual short story writer” who is generally often asked about his “feelings [toward] Same-Sex-Marriage” (newyorker.com). The New Yorker is known to readers as a critic of politics, to science and technology to popular culture. By having George Saunders speaking up about his point of view toward the political issue of gay marriage in The New Yorker, the audiences could recognize his satirical comments and underlying meaning that we need to change our views on how society accepts certain issues. At the time when Saunders’ response on The New Yorker in 2004, numbers of opponents of gay and lesbian marriage affect strongly to the nations’ …show more content…
This also become an issue in the presidential race, with both Sen. John Kerry and George Bush were on record opposing Same-Sex Marriage and supporting civil unions. Saunders’ writing responses to The New Yorker about the topic contains humors throughout his words, yet using those exaggerated details and ridiculous reasonings to oppose the society’s behavior and intention toward homosexuality and the freedom to marriage. By vividly using the satirical conventions of ridicule, Saunders thus displays his perspective within the genre of satire. In Saunders’ “My Amendment” from In Persuasion Nation, Ken Bryon sarcastically presents himself as “like any sane person, [he is] against Same-Sex-Marriage” at the beginning of the story, as mocking the recipient’s absurd opinion of a “constitutional amendment” (Saunders, 65) to ban marriage equality and referring the recipient with other oppositions as insane people. Taking homophobia to an extreme and exaggeration, Saunders suggests that not only should Same-Sex Marriage be outlawed but also even Samish-Sex-Marriage issue - the definition of a relationship that partners are using each other’s masculinity or femininity to