Purpose of the piece: To appease those who feel that Romney's religion is incongruous with being an American leader and "calm Americans' concerns about his Mormon religion" (see next article). The official reason would probably just be because Romney wanted to address the role of religion in America.
Ethos: Governor Romney establishes ethos by sharing personal experiences of how he is a "religious, moral man," attempts to identify with the reader by appealing to those with a faith in God, and implies that he is trying to identify with all who are 'good, moral people.’
Pathos: Romney uses concrete examples such as explaining his parents marched for civil rights and worked in a soup kitchen. He also uses strong phrases such as, "theocratic tyranny" and "symphony of faith" as opposed to "secular government" or "faithful group."
Logos: Romney's arguments are accountable as he mainly uses life examples. It seems his target audience was other religious groups, trying to convince them that Mormons border on "normality." I don't think his scope reached atheists, because he basically disregards their existence. His words are relevant to a predominantly Christian audience, but don’t reach much further than that. I also felt that his argument was too focused on the faith aspect. This is especially not useful because a lot of people that this was meant to reach don’t have faith in the same thing. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the only similarities in faith was that both the audience and speaker thought they were right. I think he could have also done a better job distinguishing religion as he sees it and religion as it is manifest in derogatory manners elsewhere. He addresses the “creed of conversion by conquest” but doesn’t talk about extremists and how to differ between the two. I think his approach that people and religion are inseparable could have been approached differently.
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