People always laugh when I say Strom Thurmond. You remember Strom Thurmond. Strom Thurmond was the senator from South Carolina.
我一提到斯特罗姆·舍尔蒙德这名字观众们就开始笑，你们还记得斯特罗姆这人吧？斯特罗姆·舍尔蒙德是个来自南卡罗来纳州的参议员。
He had been a segregationist many years ago, then he ended up being in the Senate, and he was there until he was like 116 years old or something.
他多年以前是个种族隔离主义者，后来进了参议院，一直待到两三百岁高龄才离开。
They're like dust him off and wheel him out.
旁人都得先给他擦擦灰然后用轮椅推他出去。
It's kind of like Weekend at Bernie's at the Capitol.
有点象电影《老板度假去》里的情节。
"Senator Thurmond, how do you feel about gay marriage?"
"舍尔蒙德参议员先生，您对同性婚姻怎么看？"（假装木偶状）。
You could actually see the wires on C-SPAN; I'm not kidding.
不开玩笑，你从电视上都能看见拴在他脑袋后面的绳子。
So. But, there's this great story about Strom Thurmond.
斯特罗姆·舍尔蒙德这人有个很逗的故事。
They were talking about sodomy laws.
当时他们正在讨论不当性行为法案。
Now, many of you don't realize that before the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws in 2003.
你们多半没有意识到，在2003年最高法院裁定不当性行为法案无效之前。
In Lawrence vs. Texas that is laws against sodomy.
即劳伦斯诉德克萨斯州那个案子之前。
The dozen-odd states that had such laws generally applied them to both anal sex and oral sex.
很多州甚至将肛交和口交同时归为违法不当性行为。
Now people didn't realize they applied to oral sex.
而大家多半也不知道口交也属于违法行为。
And about half of those states made the laws apply both to homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy.
这些州里有一半都立法同时禁止同性恋之间的"不当性行为"，和异性恋之间的"不当性行为"。
So there are these laws on the books against heterosexual oral sex, as well as heterosexual anal sex and things like this, and this got brought up in this congressional debate.
所以实际上确实有写在纸上的法条来禁止同性恋之间的"不当性行为"，而同时也同样吧异性恋之间的肛交视为"不当性行为"加以禁止。这事情闹到了参议院引起辩论。
It's like "You know, these laws I mean, heterosexual people do these things, too."
很明显异性恋也会去做这些行为。
And Strom Thurmond actually stood up which was no small feat, he stood up and said, "No, they don't!"
这时候斯特罗姆·舍尔蒙德居然站起来了，这可不是件容易事。他说到："不，异性恋不做这些！"
Suddenly, I understood why that man was so cranky.
瞬间我就明白了为什么他老人家是个暴躁的老顽固了。
I don't want you to lose the serious point embedded in all of this, which is the following:
我不想因为我讲了些笑话就让你们忽视我演讲观点里严肃的部分。
When we're talking about homosexual activity, we are talking about a wide range of experiences, often the very same kind of experiences that heterosexual people have, sexually.
当我们谈到同性恋性行为的时候，我们探讨的实际上是一种广泛的体验。在性的方面，这些体验和异性恋的体验毫无分别。
And to try to define people in terms of one particular sexual act is such a reductionistic picture of people's experience, and it really gives us a false view.
而试图用某种特定的性行为方式来定义某一类人，用这种粗暴的武断的简化分类方式来区分情感体验，会给人们造成错误的印象。
I've been talking about arguments that suggest that homosexuality is wrong because it's harmful to the people who engage in gay and lesbian relationships, but sometimes people say that homosexuality is wrong not because of what it does to gay and lesbian people, but because of what it does to the larger society.
我探讨过这种论调，指责同性恋是错的，原因是同性恋对于同性恋关系中的人有害处。不过常常有人说同性恋是错的，并不是错在同性恋本身对男女同性恋者做了什么，而是错在同性恋对整个社会的影响。
And we hear lots of claims about this, "Homosexuality is a threat to the moral fabric of our country. It's a threat to the nation's infrastructure."
我们耳边总是有这样的指责：同性恋是我们国家伦理建筑基础的威胁！它动摇了国家的基础！"
