奧巴馬對同性戀婚姻予以肯定

SINCE evolution is a gradual process, Barack Obama should perhaps not have felt embarrassed by the fact that, more than three years into his presidency, his exact views on gay marriage were still officially “evolving”. Until this week, that is. In an interview on May 9th Mr Obama finally came to a decision. “At a certain point,” he told ABC, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

既然進化是一個循序漸進的過程，那么巴拉克•奧巴馬就不應(yīng)感到羞愧，因為執(zhí)政已超三年的他對同性婚姻的態(tài)度——用官方話說——依舊在“進化”。直到本周，事情才有了轉(zhuǎn)變。在5月9日的采訪中，他終于表明了立場。“時至今日，”他告訴ABC的記者，“我得出的結(jié)論是，就個人而言，我應(yīng)向前邁一步，對同性婚姻予以肯定，這點非常重要。”

Strangely enough, Mr Obama reached his decision within days of Joe Biden, the vice-president, saying that for his own part he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriages. One day after Mr Biden, Arne Duncan, Mr Obama’s education secretary, said that he too thought same-sex marriages should be legal. The sequence of events creates the impression that by accident or design the president was in the end shamed into speaking his mind.

奇怪的是，幾天前副總統(tǒng)拜登聲明，他個人認(rèn)為同性婚姻“完全沒有問題”。幾天后，奧巴馬就表了態(tài)。拜登發(fā)表聲明后的第二天，教育秘書長阿恩•鄧肯也表了態(tài)，他認(rèn)為同性婚姻應(yīng)該合法化。這一連串的表態(tài)讓人們覺得，純屬巧合也好，有意為之也罷，羞愧心終讓總統(tǒng)說出了其立場。

Whatever his motive, Mr Obama’s conversion is a step forward for gay rights. The president had already stopped enforcing, but not yet repealed, the federal Defence of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. He had repealed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law which barred homosexuals from serving openly in the armed services. But he had hesitated on gay marriage “in part because I thought that civil unions would be sufficient,” Mr Obama told ABC. He had been “sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word marriage was something that invokes very powerful traditions [and] religious beliefs.”

不管奧巴馬出于何種動機，他態(tài)度的轉(zhuǎn)變都有利于同性戀者權(quán)力的朝前發(fā)展。在此之前，奧巴馬已下令停止執(zhí)行《婚姻捍衛(wèi)法案》，但卻未將其廢除。該法案將婚姻定義為兩名異性的結(jié)合。他也廢除了“不許問，不許說”政策，該政策曾禁止同性戀者公開在部隊中服役。不過，在同性婚姻問題上，他卻猶豫不決，“原因之一是我認(rèn)為民事結(jié)合[注1]足矣，”他告訴采訪人員。讓他一直“坐立不安的是，不少人都將婚姻這個詞與影響深遠(yuǎn)的傳統(tǒng)及宗教信仰聯(lián)系起來。”

At the state level, meanwhile, the cause of both gay marriage and civil unions had a bad week. North Carolina (where the Democrats will hold their convention this summer) voted overwhelmingly in favour of a constitutional amendment to make marriage between one man and one woman the only legal union the state will recognise. And in Colorado a measure to legalise civil unions in a state that made gay marriage illegal in 2006 was prevented from coming to a vote in the state legislature.

與此同時，這一周，同性婚姻及民事結(jié)合的發(fā)展在各州受阻。北卡羅來納州(今夏，民主黨將于此召開會議)獲得了壓倒性的投票，投票者們支持修改憲法，使異性婚姻成為唯一合法的結(jié)合，這也是該州唯一認(rèn)可的結(jié)合?？屏_拉多州曾于2006年將同性婚姻定位非法，如今該州準(zhǔn)備將民事結(jié)合合法化，但該州立法機關(guān)卻禁止對其進行投票。

Advocates had expected that Colorado would become the first state that has banned gay marriage to pass a bill allowing civil unions, which grant certain legal rights to same-sex couples. But in a dramatic turn on May 8th a state Senate-approved bill to that effect died without a full vote in the Colorado House of Representatives, which holds a slim 33-22 Republican majority. This was after Frank McNulty, the Republican Speaker, delayed bringing the bill to the floor in time to beat a midnight deadline.

同性婚姻的支持者曾希望禁止同性婚姻的科羅拉多州成為第一個將民事結(jié)合合法化的州，因為民事結(jié)合能夠賦予同性戀者一定的合法權(quán)利。但在5月8日，戲劇性的一幕出現(xiàn)了：參議院通過的一項旨在將民事結(jié)合合法化的法案于眾議院夭折，因該法案只獲得了部分選票。眾議院共和黨與民主黨的人數(shù)分別為33,22，可見共和黨優(yōu)勢微弱。投票之前，共和黨發(fā)言人弗蘭克•麥克納爾蒂未及時將法案帶到眾議院，使投票時間超過了午夜這一截止時間，從而失效。

Republicans in Colorado may come to regret the 11th-hour stratagem. In America as a whole, says Gallup, 50% of people support same-sex marriage. And according to local polls, civil unions strike a majority of Coloradans as an acceptable compromise. Maybe the views of its legislature just need time to “evolve”.

科州的共和黨人將該法案的投票時間拖延了11小時，他們可能會為這一花招后悔，因為蓋洛普民調(diào)顯示，50%的美國民眾都支持同性婚姻。當(dāng)?shù)孛裾{(diào)顯示，大多數(shù)科州民眾都認(rèn)為將民事結(jié)合合法化是個可接受的折中方式?；蛟S科州立法機構(gòu)對同性婚姻的態(tài)度只是需要時間來“進化”。