One effective speaker that I have seen at baruch was when I went to a gay and lesbian debate at the verticle building campus. This is a first time I have been to a debate about sexuality and the issues over which the debate was really made me understanding of the issues today. I thought the first speaker, whose name I unfortunately can not recall, was very passionate and therefore convincing. She is a lesbian herself, and she believed that the gay and lesbian marriage laws should be equall to those of straight people. Although I do have an opposing opinion, I do believe that she made me very close to changing my mind. She put in a lot of emotion and really challenged the opposing side. I believe that being able to put yourself out there, like she did, and be vulnerable in front of a large audience is very hard to do. Due to that fact, I think her speech was very clear and convincing and made quite a few people in the audience support her.