美国有线新闻 CNN 2013-04-08

 Words tonight that pro¹ football may be reaching a pivotal moment. One of the sport's most outspoken² advocates for equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, former Baltimore Ravens³ linebacker, Brendon Ayanbadejo, says as many as four gay NFL players may be considering coming out(真相大白) publicly on the same day, current players, not retired⁴ athletes.

 

He told the "Baltimore Sun" it could happen sooner than anyone thinks. If it does, it would be ground-breaking, obviously. Right now, there are no openly gay players currently in the ranks of pro football, baseball, basketball.

 

Ayanbadejo's prediction comes a day after he was cut from the Ravens. I'm very pleased that he joins me now tonight. Brendon, it's great to have you on the program.

 

Thanks for having me on.

 

So first of all, let's talk about you being cut. Do you believe this has anything to do with your advocacy?

 

No, absolutely not. The Ravens have been supporting my advocacy since 2009 and they've actually facilitated me hooking up with marriage equality supporters in Maryland and basically helping⁵ everything that I've done in Maryland for marriage equality and LGBT rights. So in no way, shape or form, have they ever not encouraged me to be myself and to keep helping the LGBT community.

 

It's really rare, I mean, not only to have a sports figure of your stature⁶ but also a straight(诚实的；正直的) person be such an ally to gay and lesbian Americans and trans-gender Americans. What, did you have a personal evolution on this issue? I I mean, was there a day you suddenly, I mean when, did you always feel this way, or … ?

 

I would have to say I always felt this way growing up in Santa Cruz, California. But, you know, to me, this issue is very personal. To me this is a fight we fought before. This is loving versus⁷ Virginia in the '60s.

 

They're trying to tell us who we can and can't love. The government shouldn't dictate⁸ that. My father would not have been allowed to marry my mother in the '60s so luckily I'm a child of the '70s and so we're fighting the same fight now in 2013.

 

You see this as a continuum of the civil rights struggle.

 

This is an LGBT rights, this is equal rights. Yes.

 

Yeah, I mean, I usually try to use the term not gay rights because it makes it sound like some sort of special rights. It's equal rights.

 

Absolutely.

 

OK, you said that there may be four gay NFL players right now who are considering coming out. Obviously, you're not going to name them or anything like that but do you know these people?

 

No, actually, what it is, there are organizations that I'm in contact with and there are individuals that I'm in contact with and collectively we know of some gay players and these players, some of them are anonymous⁹, some of them we know who they are but their identity is super-secret and nobody wants to reveal who they are.

 

And some of them, they don't want to reveal who they are rightfully so because it's entirely¹⁰ up to them what they are going to do. What we want to facilitate is getting them all together so they can lean on each other, so they can have a support group and potentially it's possible.

 

It's fathomable¹¹ that they could possibly do something together and break a story together, and one of them had voiced that he would like to break his story with somebody else and not do it alone and that's all I'm saying.

 

And, you know, whether it's one person that wants to do it or two people that want to do it, not all of these athletes are even in the NFL. They are in other sports as well. So …. 

 

How do you think the response would be? I mean, I guess among fans in the locker¹² room, you can't generalize, of course, but we have heard, you know, some statements recently from some players saying it would be a distraction¹³. It would be selfish for a player to come out on a team.

 

Yeah, well, I think ideally what we're trying to do is we're trying to get to a point where we're past talking about inclusiveness in sports and LGBT rights, kind of how we're past talking about racism¹⁴ in the locker room. It's a thing of the past. It's something that we don't even address or consider, even think about racism in the locker room.

 

So I think we're trying to get to that point and ideally have a trickledown effect into younger people and into children so that's what we're trying to do. Of course, we're gonna to have to break some barriers to get there and we're gonna have to, you know, sit down and we're gonna talk about this.

 

And we're gonna have to hash(切细；搞糟；推敲) things out and at the end of the day, everyone's gonna will have to accept it whether they like it or not because it's the right thing to do. So, we're trying to get past the issue but we have to get there first and of course, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

1 pro   

n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者

参考例句：

• The two debating teams argued the question pro and con.辩论的两组从赞成与反对两方面辩这一问题。
• Are you pro or con nuclear disarmament?你是赞成还是反对核裁军？

2 outspoken   

adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的

参考例句：

• He was outspoken in his criticism.他在批评中直言不讳。
• She is an outspoken critic of the school system in this city.她是这座城市里学校制度的坦率的批评者。

3 ravens   

n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Wheresoever the carcase is,there will the ravens be gathered together. 哪里有死尸，哪里就有乌鸦麇集。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A couple of ravens croaked above our boat. 两只乌鸦在我们小船的上空嘎嘎叫着。 来自辞典例句

4 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

6 stature   

n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材

参考例句：

• He is five feet five inches in stature.他身高5英尺5英寸。
• The dress models are tall of stature.时装模特儿的身材都较高。

7 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

8 dictate   

v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令

参考例句：

• It took him a long time to dictate this letter.口述这封信花了他很长时间。
• What right have you to dictate to others?你有什么资格向别人发号施令？

9 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

10 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

11 fathomable   

可测的，看得透的

参考例句：

• All his life, the scholar attempt to render science fathomable to the public. 这位学者一生都试图使科学为大众所理解。
• It is a breakthrough to extract key information from fathomable electrical measurements with appropriate mathematics tool. 寻找合适的数学工具从可测电气量中提取故障信息是重要的突破点。

12 locker   

n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人

参考例句：

• At the swimming pool I put my clothes in a locker.在游泳池我把衣服锁在小柜里。
• He moved into the locker room and began to slip out of his scrub suit.他走进更衣室把手术服脱下来。

13 distraction   

n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐

参考例句：

• Total concentration is required with no distractions.要全神贯注，不能有丝毫分神。
• Their national distraction is going to the disco.他们的全民消遣就是去蹦迪。

14 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。