同性恋让你感到别扭吗？

 

同性恋让你感到别扭吗?

WHAT an altered world we live in. What an advanced one. The man I love and I can be married in New York or 35 other states if we ever get organized enough, if we decide that we want public vows and a gaudy cake — I’m thinking devil’s food, for a host of reasons — to seal our commitment.

我们身处一个天翻地覆的世界。一个进步的世界。我和我爱的那个男人，可以在纽约或另外35个州结婚，只要我们能紧密组织起来，只要我们下决心，要用公开的誓言和一个俗气的蛋糕——我在考虑用巧克力蛋糕，这么做的理由相当多——来完成我们的盟约。

I’m grateful for that. I’m stunned, really.

对此我心怀感激。这真是惊人的变化。

And yet. When we’re walking down the street after a long dinner or a sad movie and he slips his hand in mine, I tense. I look around nervously: Is anyone staring? Glaring? I feel exposed, endangered, and I’m right to, even here in New York, even near my apartment on Manhattan’s epically liberal Upper West Side. Just two years ago and two blocks from my home, an inebriated young woman who spotted us shouted: “So you’re gay? These two are gay!” She went on and on like that, for what seemed an eternity.

不过，当我们吃完一顿丰盛的晚餐或看了一部伤感的电影后走在街上，他拉起我的手，我会僵住。我紧张地四处张望：会不会有人在盯着、瞪着我们?我感觉自己身处险境，危机四伏，而这些念头，即使在纽约，在崇尚自由的曼哈顿上西区，我的寓所附近，也都是合乎情理的。就在两年前，距离我家两个街区的地方，一个醉醺醺的年轻女人冲我们大吼：“那你们是基佬咯?他们是基佬!”她就这样一直吼着，时间仿佛陷入停滞。

It was the booze talking, sure. But sometimes alcohol is a truth serum, stripping the varnish of etiquette to reveal the ugliness beneath.

那当然是醉话。但有时候，酒精是一剂让人吐露真言的免疫血清，礼貌的外表被剥去，丑陋的内心袒露出来。

A straight woman puts a photograph of herself and her beloved on her desk at work and it’s merely décor. A lesbian displays the same kind of picture and it’s an act of laudable candor or questionable boldness: a statement, either way you cut it. She knows that some people’s eyes will linger on it too long, or will turn from it abruptly. She has to decide not to care.

一个异性恋女性把她和爱人的照片放在办公桌上，那只是一个装饰。如果一个同性恋女性展示了同样的照片，就成了值得赞美的德行，或引发争议的大胆之举：不管是哪种情况，它都成了一种姿态。她知道有些人的目光会久久停留在照片上，有些人会猝然把视线移向别处。她只能选择不去想这些。

And a politician who says awful, hateful things about gays and lesbians can still find a warm enough reception and plenty of traction in one of our two major political parties. The Republican winner of the Iowa caucuses in 2012, Rick Santorum, has said that the marriage of two men or two women is no more like the marriage of a man and a woman than a tree is like a car or a cup of tea is like a basketball. He has also lumped homosexuality together with incest.

而且，一个对同性恋男女说出可怕的、充满厌恨的话语的政治人物仍然能在两大政党之一得到足够热情的欢迎，及相当充分的支持。2012年在艾奥瓦州党团会议上获胜的共和党人里克·桑托勒姆(Rick Santorum)曾表示，要说两个男人或两个女人之间的婚姻，和一男一女之间的婚姻是一回事，等于在说一棵树和一辆车是一回事，或者一杯茶和一个篮球是一回事。他还把同性恋和乱伦混为一谈。

So has Mike Huckabee, the winner of the Iowa caucuses in 2008. Both are poised to run for the presidency again, in a field potentially including Ben Carson, who has mentioned homosexuality and bestiality in the same breath, and Ted Cruz, who urges ardent prayer against what he considers the society-threatening outrage of two men or two women tying the knot.

2008年艾奥瓦党团会议的获胜者麦克·赫卡比(Mike Huckabee)也是这样。两人都准备再次参加总统竞选，同样可能加入的还有本·卡森(Ben Carson)，他曾将同性恋和兽交相提并论，以及特德·克鲁兹(Ted Cruz)，他曾呼吁大家全心全意去祈祷两个男人或两个女人结为连理这样的事不会发生，他认为那是威胁人类社会的恶行。

I don’t expect any of them to win the nomination, partly because their particular, pronounced degree of closed-mindedness won’t wash with the number of Americans whose favor they need. Hurray for that.

我估计这些人都不会得到候选人提名，一定程度上是因为他们都表现出了具体的、显著的封闭思想色彩，很多美国人不会买他们的账，而他们需要这些美国人。谢天谢地。

But I expect that on their way to defeat they’ll turn us gays into punch lines and punching bags. I expect that I’ll hear and watch large audiences cheer and egg them on. It’s a sickening spectacle, if you pay it any heed.

但我也估计，在他们走向失败的过程中，我们这些同性恋者会被他们变成俏皮话和宣泄的对象。我估计我会听到、看到一大群欢呼雀跃的人被鼓动起来。那将是一个令人作呕的景象，除非你完全不关心这些。

Sarah Kate Ellis wishes that you would.

而莎拉·凯特·埃利斯(Sarah Kate Ellis)希望你去关注一下这个情况。

She’s the head of Glaad, a prominent gay rights group, and she and it are doing something important right now. They’re trying to reacquaint Americans with the vast and messy landscape beyond the handful of political issues that garner the most news coverage. They’re trying to size up the territory where hard work is still necessary and to guarantee that it’s not ignored.

她是著名的同性恋权益团体同性恋者反诋毁联盟(Glaad)的负责人，她和这个团体正在做一些重要的事情。他们希望帮助美国人从占据着新闻报道的那几个政治问题中跳脱出来，重新去认识整体上的糟糕局面。他们试图评估哪些领域还需要努力，要确保它们不被忽视。

“We want to make sure that marriage is looked at as the benchmark and not the finish line,” she said. “Where are the hearts and minds of Americans?”

“我们一定要让婚姻成为一个衡量标准，而不是终点线，”她说。“评估美国人的心和意识正处在什么位置。”

To answer that question, Glaad commissioned a Harris Poll late last year. I was given a first look at the results, which underscored how uncomfortable many Americans remain with gay, lesbian and bisexual people — and, even more so, with transgender people.

为了给这个问题找到答案，Glaad去年底委托进行了一次哈里斯民调(Harris Poll)。我先期了解了调查结果，从中可以看到男女同性恋和双性恋人群依然让美国人感到不自在，对跨性别人士就更是如此。

About 30 percent of the respondents who didn’t identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender said that it would unsettle them to learn that their physician or child’s teacher did.

在认为自己不属于男女同性恋、双性恋或跨性别的受访者中，约有30%的人表示如果他们的医生或孩子的老师属于这类人，他们会感到不安。

Close to 45 percent said that they would be uneasy about bringing a child to a same-sex wedding. Thirty-six percent feel uncomfortable when they see a same-sex couple hold hands.

接近45%的人说，带孩子去参加一场同性婚礼会让他们担心。有36%的人说看到同性情侣手拉手会觉得不舒服。

And those percentages probably pretty up the truth. Pollsters have learned that people often say what they think they’re supposed to rather than how they really feel.

这些数字可能基本上反映了现实。民调发现人往往会依据他们“觉得自己应该怎么样”来说话，而不是根据他们的真实感受。

Their feelings, in any case, are mixed and evolving. Glaad’s poll is just the latest to capture this. In a survey conducted a little over a year ago by the Public Religion Research Institute, 51 percent of respondents said that sex between two men or two women is morally wrong.

无论从哪方面看，他们的感受都是复杂且不停变化的。而这一点远非Glaad的民调首次发现。一年多前公共宗教研究所(Public Religion Research Institute)的一次调查中，51%的受访者认为，两个男人或两个女人之间的性爱是败德行为。

One especially interesting discovery in the Glaad poll was how much unease lingered even in respondents who formally approved of gay marriage or of civil unions with full benefits. Twenty percent of these people said they’d nonetheless feel uncomfortable attending a same-sex wedding.

在Glaad的民调中，有一点格外有意思：连明确支持同性伴侣可以结婚或进行享有全部权益的民事结合的受访者，也是存在这种不安的。这类人中有20%表示，如果参加同性婚礼，他们还是会觉得不自在。

What might change that, other than the passage of time?

除了时间，还有什么能改变这种局面?

THERE’S no definitive solution or strategy, but Ellis emphasized the importance of getting those straight people who are wholly comfortable with gays to be more forward about that — more evangelical, if you will — and to recognize that the country’s education and illumination are incomplete. Glaad is focusing its energies on that, with a new campaign called “Got Your Back.”

立竿见影的办法或策略是不存在的，但埃利斯强调，很重要的一点是那些对同性恋能坦然接受的异性恋者要更积极地——也可以说更狂热地——去宣传，要认识到这个国家的教育和启蒙是存在不足的。Glaad正把精力集中在这个问题上，发起了一项名为“为你撑腰”(Got Your Back)的活动。

There’s so much hurt and madness out there, to this day: a gay couple told that their children aren’t welcome at a private school; gay and transgender people bloodied in hate crimes; teenagers who are bullied or take their own lives. Those sorts of injustices won’t be extinguished by any imminent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage.

伤痛与疯狂直到今天都还是随处可见的：一对同性伴侣得知一家私立学校不欢迎他们的孩子;同性恋和跨性别人士成为仇恨暴行的目标;遭欺凌的少年结束了自己的生命。这些不公正的事件，不会因为最高法院(Supreme Court)即将就同性婚姻做出什么裁决而杜绝。

Nor will such a ruling change the fact that most states have never enacted laws protecting gay people from employment discrimination.

大多数州都没有法律保护同性恋者免受就业歧视，这也不是一个高法裁决就能改变的。