It went from the International Olympic Committee announcing that athletes and fans would not be affected, to many Russian politicians saying it will, in fact, be in effect during the games, to IOC saying it won't participate in politics etc.
In all likelihood, the games will be held in Russia, but I, for one, won't be watching. I would love it, if the games were transferred to another location, or if the athlete community would boycott it, or even countries at large. But I doubt it will happen.
The violence against lgbt people in Russia has intensified since the law was passed, and it seems like it is all the validation neo-nazis and other homophobes need to justify beating up innocent people for just being themselves.
It's not even about athletes being able to be themselves and feel proud about themselves. It will be very difficult to arrest international athletes without anyone noticing, or without it becoming a major news story and reflect badly on Russia. But who will defend the fans? Suspicion of gay propaganda is enough to arrest people, whether it's true or not. So who will make sure that the international fans will be treated right, or won't disappear in the dungeons of Russian prison system, or won't be beaten to death by locals defending this law? And what about the local LGBT community? How is any of this fair to them? The talk so far has been about the international community and ensuring their safety. Is it ok to beat and jail the locals then? And if a gay fan of an athlete is killed while there, was it worth for the athlete to participate, or to win? Is that olympic medal more valuable than the lives of others?
One of the arguments against boycotting has been that the athletes have trained for years for this. By all means then, the athletes have trained, they must compete. Go ahead Russia, carry on, beat and jail your gays and lesbians as long as the athletes won't be affected. LGBT athletes eligible to compete in these games, who decide to stay home won't really make much of a difference, since there are like 2 male athletes who are out. And there really is no way Johnny Weir will be mistaken as being straight. And his husband is Russian born...as a matter of fact, we share a family name. Maybe we are related?
I've also heard that you shouldn't mix sports and politics. Let the athletes compete and let the politicians do the politics and diplomacy. Once the games are over and done with in Russia, will the big countries remember the LGBT people in Russia? They'll be forgotten. So I will not have anything to do with the olympics as long as they are held in Russia. I will not support anything that would make it ok to put me in jail just because of who I am. I'm very disappointed with Obama as well, because he said USA will not boycott the games. He did elect to not go to Russia for a visit because of this, but still. Someone needs to step up.
I've been to Sochi back in 1991. I actually have two portraits of myself on my walls that were made by artist at a park in Sochi. They look totally different, but still are so me. I was few years younger in these, as you can see.
The artist put the city and year in this one.
This one was hard to take a picture of. Flash came up horrible, so this is not the clearest.
Few weeks ago, as part of my job, we do test fishing on 5 lakes this summer. Well, professional fishermen do it, I just go and take pictures. The purpose is to determine the state of the lakes fisheries as well as the water quality. There was a local news paper making a story about the first lake, so I thought it was the perfect gay propaganda photo op, especially since that macho LGBT hating president of Russia had just allegedly caught a "21kg" northern pike from somewhere in Siberia. I'd like to say that the fish I'm posing with is at least 23 kg, but I'd be lying, and we don't lie about my work so...it's just about 400g. Notice my Gay Cafe tee! Unfortunately my t-shirt did not make it to news paper article, but it was one of the most liked picture on Facebook I've posted.
So Russia and Putin, you can keep your olympics, you can keep your track and field World Championships and you can just go. to. hell. It's safe to say, we will not be meeting in the near future. If ever.
