Status Offenses

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Though it had been a wrong interpretation, it looked just all right on the surface. On the Korean version at least. Not a problem. Almost all the Korean readers will not notice the difference. However, it turned out to be an utterly contradictory version to the original text.

Text:
We had a tougher time when it came to gay rights. Two years later, Attorney General Jim Guy Tucker had spearheaded a new criminal code through the legislature. It simplified and clarified the definitions of more than one hundred years of complicated and overlapping crimes. It also eliminated so-called status offenses, which had been condemned by the Supreme Court. A crime requires committing a forbidden act, intentionally or recklessly; just being something society deems undesirable isn't enough. For example, being a drunk wasn't a crime. Neither was being a homosexual, though it had been before the code was adopted. (My Life, Bill Clinton, p.247) (The Korean version, p.365~p.366)

Dano's comments:

The translator gives a lie to the readers of the Korean version. According to the translator, three protagonists--Attorney General, the Supreme Court, and the writer himself--unanimously agreed on the crminality of the so-called status offenses. Did they?

The bold-typed (by myself of course) clause said they did not. The Supreme Court had condemned the status offenses. The Korean translator has made a distortion of the clause in question by stating to the effect that "...and it had been made null by the Supreme Court..." The word condemned here means that the court considered it guilty and ruled so.

The English language is the language of relationships. The translator does not have the idea. He or she has not the concept of relationships in mind. Don't you see the relationships between the bold-typed clause which had been condemned by the Supreme Court and the bold-typed and underlined clause though it had been before the code was adopted. Don't you see?