One Town's War on Gay Teens

This article is about a series of teen suicides that happened in the Anoka-Hennipin area over the last few years. I think this is a very interesting article. It was published in the RollingStone, which I think is equally interesting. Anyways, the author tells us a story about a few of the teenage students. She goes on to tell us about how many of the suicides happened, who died, the "reasons" for each (perceived reasons, none left notes) and how they were related. Throughout the article she switches off between the kids stories and telling us some background about the situation in Anoka-Hennipin, such as the political climate, some policies in place at the time and how the policies changed. She goes into great depth talking about the school board and how they handled the situations. The main device she uses for persuasion is emotional appeals. She uses very powerful language when giving the students stories. She does not outright state her purpose, but it can be implied. She brings up Michelle Bachmann a few times, so I believe there might be a little bit of a political agenda. Also, though, she is pro gay rights. I feel like she just uses the teen suicides (many of the students were or were perceived as being gay and being bullied for it in school) to make her argument. She frames the situation in a way so if you don't agree with her point of view than you support teen suicide. She did something really tricky with her use of narratives because it doesn't come off as her trying to manipulate our emotions. I believe that this is because she did not explicitly state her purpose or what she wanted people to do. Because there was no call to action, it seemed like she was just informing us of the situation, even though it was WAY more than that.