homosexuality represents a misuse of the sexual faculty.

「宗教的なことは一切 抜きにしても

It is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality --

ホモセクシャルは性的機能の 誤用と言わざるを得ない

a pitiable flight from life.

それは救いようのない 低俗な現実の代用品であり

As such, it deserves no compassion,

人生からの哀れむべき逃避である

it deserves no treatment

それ自体 同情には値せず

as minority martyrdom,

マイノリティの苦難として

and it deserves not to be deemed anything but a pernicious sickness."

治療にも値しない

That's from Time magazine in 1966, when I was three years old.

不治の病と見なすより他にない」

And last year, the president of the United States

これは1966年 私が３歳の時に発行された TIME誌からの引用です

came out in favor of gay marriage.

そして昨年 アメリカ合衆国大統領は

(Applause)

同性婚に好意的な態度を表明しました

And my question is, how did we get from there to here?

（拍手）

How did an illness become an identity?

ここまでの道程は どんなものだったのでしょう

When I was perhaps six years old,

いかにして「病」は アイデンティティになったのでしょう

I went to a shoe store with my mother and my brother.

私が６歳ぐらいだった時のことです

And at the end of buying our shoes,

母と弟と一緒に 靴屋へ行きました

the salesman said to us that we could each have a balloon to take home.

靴を買った後

My brother wanted a red balloon, and I wanted a pink balloon.

お店の人が風船をくれると言いました

My mother said that she thought I'd really rather have a blue balloon.

弟は赤い風船を 私はピンクの風船を希望しました

But I said that I definitely wanted the pink one.

母は私に「本当は青がいいんでしょ？」 と言いました

And she reminded me that my favorite color was blue.

でも私は絶対に ピンクが良かったのです

The fact that my favorite color now is blue, but I'm still gay --

母は 「青色が好きだったでしょう」と 念押ししました

(Laughter) --

現在の私は青が好きですが 相変わらずゲイですから―

is evidence of both my mother's influence and its limits.

（笑）

(Laughter)

これは母親の影響力と その限界を 同時に証明している訳です

(Applause)

（笑）

When I was little, my mother used to say,

（拍手）

"The love you have for your children is like no other feeling in the world.

小さい頃 母はよく言っていました

And until you have children, you don't know what it's like."

「子供に対する親の愛情は 他のどんな感情にも代えがたいものよ

And when I was little, I took it as the greatest compliment in the world

子供を持ってみないと わからないけどね」

that she would say that about parenting my brother and me.

私たち兄弟を育てることを そんなふうに言ってくれる―

And when I was an adolescent, I thought

幼い私にとって 母の言葉は最大の賛辞でした

that I'm gay, and so I probably can't have a family.

思春期になり 私は自分がゲイで

And when she said it, it made me anxious.

おそらく家族を持つことはないと 思うようになりました

And after I came out of the closet,

すると母の言葉は 私を不安にさせました

when she continued to say it, it made me furious.

カミングアウト後も

I said, "I'm gay. That's not the direction that I'm headed in.

母は例のセリフを言い続け 私は怒りを覚えました

And I want you to stop saying that."

「僕はゲイだから その方向へは進まない」

About 20 years ago, I was asked by my editors at The New York Times Magazine

「もう言わないでくれ」と言いました

to write a piece about deaf culture.

20年ほど前 私はニューヨーク・ タイムズ・マガジンの編集者から

And I was rather taken aback.

ろう文化についての記事を 依頼されました

I had thought of deafness entirely as an illness.

かなり戸惑いました

Those poor people, they couldn't hear.

「ろう」を全くの疾患と思っていたのです

They lacked hearing, and what could we do for them?

耳の聞こえない 気の毒な人々

And then I went out into the deaf world.

聴覚のない彼らのために 何ができるのか？

I went to deaf clubs.

やがて私は ろうの世界に入り

I saw performances of deaf theater and of deaf poetry.

ろう者のクラブに行きました

I even went to the Miss Deaf America contest in Nashville, Tennessee

ろう者の演劇や手話詩を 見に行きました

where people complained about that slurry Southern signing.

テネシー州ナッシュビルで開催された ろう者のミスコンにも行ったのですが

(Laughter)

そこでは皆「南部の手話は訛っている」 と文句を言っていました

And as I plunged deeper and deeper into the deaf world,

（笑）

I become convinced that deafness was a culture

ろう者の世界に どんどん深く はまって行き

and that the people in the deaf world who said,

私は ろう が文化であると 確信しました

"We don't lack hearing, we have membership in a culture,"

ろう者たちの 「我々は聴覚がないんじゃない

were saying something that was viable.

この文化を担う 権利を持ってるんだ」という言葉に

It wasn't my culture,

たくましさを感じました

and I didn't particularly want to rush off and join it,

私は部外者でしたし

but I appreciated that it was a culture

その文化に殊更 入りたいとも思っていませんでしたが

and that for the people who were members of it,

私はそれが一つの文化であり

it felt as valuable as Latino culture or gay culture or Jewish culture.

その文化のメンバーたちにとっては

It felt as valid perhaps even as American culture.

ラテン文化やゲイ文化 ユダヤ文化と同様 価値のあるものなんだと感じました

Then a friend of a friend of mine had a daughter who was a dwarf.

仮に アメリカ文化と比べても 引けを取らないでしょう

And when her daughter was born,

同じ頃 友達の友達に 小人症の娘が生まれました

she suddenly found herself confronting questions

娘が生まれると同時に

that now began to seem quite resonant to me.

母親の目の前には 疑問が立ちはだかりました

She was facing the question of what to do with this child.

それは今の私には とても共感できることです

Should she say, "You're just like everyone else but a little bit shorter?"

「この子と どう向き合えばいいのか？」 という疑問です

Or should she try to construct some kind of dwarf identity,

「あなたは ちょっと小さいけど 他の皆と同じなのよ」と言うのか？

get involved in the Little People of America,

それとも 小人としての アイデンティティの確立を目指し

become aware of what was happening for dwarfs?

Little People of America に参加して

And I suddenly thought,

小人症の現状に目を向けるべきか？

most deaf children are born to hearing parents.

私は突然 思いつきました

Those hearing parents tend to try to cure them.

ろうの子の殆どは 健常の親の元に生まれます

Those deaf people discover community somehow in adolescence.

親たちは「治療」を考えがちですが

Most gay people are born to straight parents.

子供は思春期になると ろうのコミュニティを発見するものです

Those straight parents often want them to function

同性愛者の殆どは ストレートの親の元に生まれます

in what they think of as the mainstream world,

ストレートの親は大抵 自分たちの考える「普通」の世界で

and those gay people have to discover identity later on.

生きていけるようになってほしい と望みますが

And here was this friend of mine

同性愛者は自らのアイデンティティを いずれ発見することになります

looking at these questions of identity with her dwarf daughter.

いま私の友人が直面しているのは

And I thought, there it is again:

小人症の娘の アイデンティティの問題です

A family that perceives itself to be normal

同じだと思いました

with a child who seems to be extraordinary.

どこか普通でない子を持ちながらも

And I hatched the idea that there are really two kinds of identity.

そのことを普通だと捉えている家族

There are vertical identities,

私はアイデンティティには ２種類あると考えるようになりました

which are passed down generationally from parent to child.

１つは「縦」のアイデンティティ

Those are things like ethnicity, frequently nationality, language, often religion.

これは親から子へ 受け継がれていくもので

Those are things you have in common with your parents and with your children.

民族性や 多くの場合 国民性 言語や宗教などのことです

And while some of them can be difficult,

これらは親子間で 共有されるアイデンティティです

there's no attempt to cure them.

中には厳しいものもありますが

You can argue that it's harder in the United States --

誰もそれを「治療」しようとはしません

our current presidency notwithstanding --

現大統領が有色とはいえ やはりアメリカ合衆国において

to be a person of color.

有色人種であることは

And yet, we have nobody who is trying to ensure

困難を伴うと言えるでしょう

that the next generation of children born to African-Americans and Asians

だからと言って アフリカ系アメリカ人や

come out with creamy skin and yellow hair.

アジア人の間に生まれる 次世代の子供たちの肌をクリーム色に

There are these other identities which you have to learn from a peer group.

髪を黄色にしてやろうと思う人は どこにもいません

And I call them horizontal identities,

これとは別に仲間から学ぶ アイデンティティがあります

because the peer group is the horizontal experience.

仲間というのは 横に広がる感覚ですから

These are identities that are alien to your parents

私はこれを 「横」のアイデンティティと呼びます

and that you have to discover when you get to see them in peers.

このアイデンティティについて 親は門外漢ですから

And those identities, those horizontal identities,

仲間との関わりから 見つけるしかないのです

people have almost always tried to cure.

このような横のアイデンティティは

And I wanted to look at what the process is

ほとんどの場合 「治療」の対象にされます

through which people who have those identities

私はこうしたアイデンティティを 持つ人々が

come to a good relationship with them.

それらと上手く 付き合えるようになるまでの

And it seemed to me that there were three levels of acceptance

過程を調べたいと考えました

that needed to take place.

どうやら その過程では もれなく３段階の受容が

There's self-acceptance, there's family acceptance, and there's social acceptance.

生じるようでした

And they don't always coincide.

それは 自己による受容 家族による受容 そして社会による受容です

And a lot of the time, people who have these conditions are very angry

同時に起きるとは限りません

because they feel as though their parents don't love them,

こうした状況にある人は大抵 怒りに満ちています

when what actually has happened is that their parents don't accept them.

彼らが親に愛されていないと 感じているためですが

Love is something that ideally is there unconditionally

実は親は 彼らを受容できていないだけなのです

throughout the relationship between a parent and a child.

愛は 理想的に言えば

But acceptance is something that takes time.

親子の間で 常に 無条件に存在するものです

It always takes time.

しかし受容には時間がかかります

One of the dwarfs I got to know was a guy named Clinton Brown.

時間がかかるものなのです

When he was born, he was diagnosed with diastrophic dwarfism,

知り合いの小人症の男性に クリントン・ブラウンという人がいました

a very disabling condition,

彼は生まれた時に 変形性小人症で―

and his parents were told that he would never walk, he would never talk,

重度の障害と診断されました

he would have no intellectual capacity,

両親は こう告げられました 彼は歩くことも話すこともできず

and he would probably not even recognize them.

知能も持たず

And it was suggested to them that they leave him at the hospital

おそらく親を認識することすら ないだろうと

so that he could die there quietly.

そして彼が静かに息を引き取れるよう

And his mother said she wasn't going to do it.

病院に置いていくことを 勧められました

And she took her son home.

ところが彼の母は きっぱり断り

And even though she didn't have a lot of educational or financial advantages,

彼を家に連れて帰ったのです

she found the best doctor in the country

教育の面でも経済的にも 余裕はありませんでしたが

for dealing with diastrophic dwarfism,

変形小人症に立ち向かうために

and she got Clinton enrolled with him.

母親は 国内で最高の医者を見つけ出し

And in the course of his childhood,

クリントンを そこへ入院させました

he had 30 major surgical procedures.

彼は幼少期のうちに

And he spent all this time stuck in the hospital

30回の大手術を受けました

while he was having those procedures,

彼はその間のすべての時間を

as a result of which he now can walk.

病院で過ごしましたが

And while he was there, they sent tutors around to help him with his school work.

おかげで歩けるようになりました

And he worked very hard because there was nothing else to do.

入院中も学校の勉強ができるように 親は家庭教師を雇いました

And he ended up achieving at a level

他にすることもないので 彼は一生懸命勉強しました

that had never before been contemplated by any member of his family.

そして ついに彼は

He was the first one in his family, in fact, to go to college,

家族の誰もが予期しなかった程の レベルに到達したのです

where he lived on campus and drove a specially-fitted car

彼は家族の中で大学に進んだ 第１号となり

that accommodated his unusual body.

キャンパスに住み 彼の特別な体に合わせた―

And his mother told me this story of coming home one day --

特別装備の車を運転しました

and he went to college nearby --

彼の母がこんな話をしてくれました ある日の帰宅途中のこと

and she said, "I saw that car, which you can always recognize,

彼の大学は近所にあるのですが

in the parking lot of a bar," she said. (Laughter)

「あの子の車は 見たらすぐにわかるでしょ

"And I thought to myself, they're six feet tall, he's three feet tall.

それがバーの駐車場にあったのよ」 （笑）

Two beers for them is four beers for him."

「他の人たちは身長180センチ 彼は90センチだから

She said, "I knew I couldn't go in there and interrupt him,

２杯のビールは 彼には４杯分ってことよ」

but I went home, and I left him eight messages on his cell phone."

「そこへ割り込んで行くわけにも いかないし

She said, "And then I thought,

家に帰って 彼の携帯に ８回も留守電を入れちゃった」

if someone had said to me when he was born

「その時 思ったの

that my future worry would be that he'd go drinking and driving with his college buddies -- "

彼が生まれた時に 『いずれは大学の仲間と車で飲みに行って

(Applause)

心配させられることになるよ』 なんて言う人がいたかしら」

And I said to her, "What do you think you did

（拍手）

that helped him to emerge as this charming, accomplished, wonderful person?"

彼女に尋ねました 「彼がここまで魅力的で―

And she said, "What did I do? I loved him, that's all.

優秀で素晴らしい人間になったのは あなたが何をしたからでしょう？」

Clinton just always had that light in him.

彼女は言いました「私が何をしたか？ 私は彼を愛してた ただそれだけよ

And his father and I were lucky enough to be the first to see it there."

クリントンは輝く素質のある子でした

I'm going to quote from another magazine of the '60s.

夫と私はそれを誰よりも先に見られて 幸運でした」

This one is from 1968 -- The Atlantic Monthly, voice of liberal America --

ここでまた60年代の別の雑誌から 引用を紹介します

written by an important bioethicist.

1968年のアトランティック誌からです 自由主義アメリカの声として

He said, "There is no reason to feel guilty

ある生命倫理学の重鎮が書きました

about putting a Down syndrome child away,

「ダウン症の子供を捨てたとしても

whether it is put away in the sense of hidden in a sanitarium

何ら罪を感じる必要はない

or in a more responsible, lethal sense.

施設に こっそり捨てようと