[1:03 pm update]

According to the Spec:

Responding to a question about homosexuality in Iran, Ahmanidejad said, In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” a statement which drew laughter followed by boos.

Aries Dela Cruz, GS ’08 and communications chair of the Columbia Queer Alliance, said after the speech that the question to Ahmadinejad had been poorly phrased.

“The Western category of gay or lesbian doesn’t translate well into Farsi,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that Ahmadinejad didn’t understand the question.”

As a linguistics/anthro major, it infuriates me that such a controversial issue was further complicated due to translation problems. My coworker commented that SIPA should have done a better job of finding a more competent translator (from the UN, maybe?). However, this delves into cultural issues, which are beyond languages in isolated form.

Rumor has it that the translator for yesterday's Ahmadinejad forum incorrectly translated the Iranian President's quote as follows:

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country.

We don't have that in our country.

In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it.

After speaking to a friend in the work office, I found that some of the Persian (American?) students who listened to the speech think that rather than just "We don't have that," Ahmadinejad directly stated a difference between Iranian and American culture.

This still has yet to be verified, but if it's true, it makes a very big difference. Who knows if Fox News has the intellectual capacity to make such a distinction.