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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / LGBTQ Rights / Gay Rights are Human Rights / Sochi Update

Sochi Update

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From the Washington Post:

MOSCOW — The International Olympic Committee said Thursday that it had no grounds to challenge a Russian law widely perceived as anti-gay, angering LGBT and human rights activists, who say they will make their case with sponsors and governments taking part in the Sochi Winter Olympics.

On a final inspection tour before the opening ceremony in February, IOC Chairman Jean-Claude Killy declared himself satisfied with the situation in Russia “as long as the Olympic Charter is respected.” The charter describes sport as a human right and rejects discrimination. He pronounced the venues ready and predicted a fabulous Olympics…

Rights advocates said they were furious but not surprised at the IOC’s unwillingness to wrangle with Russia, which is hosting the Games for the first time since 1980 and spending $50 million to do so, the most expensive Olympics yet….

I’ll never be able to think of Jean-Claude Killy without remembering Hunter S. Thompson’s 1970 report on his budding career as a spokesmodel. I guess it says something about the IOC that they brought a proven professional to sell their deeply implausible story.

Reader Interactions

36Comments

  2. 2.

    Gravenstone

    Its all about the Benjamins. That, and the tacit understanding that Putin would likely have various IOC members whacked if they pulled the games from Sochi.

  3. 3.

    dedc79

    I can’t claim to know whether the Olympics have always been one big giant fraud, but they certainly have been for as long as I’ve been paying attention.

  5. 5.

    Ben Franklin

    Andrew Miller, a member of the New York chapter of Queer Nation, said the IOC had capitulated to a repressive regime. “It has sold out the lesbian and gay community in Russia, when it could have been a powerful force for their protection,” he said.

    It’s kind of a standing joke that in the LGBT community the ‘T’ is silent.
    Just ask the ousted Grand Marshall of the SF Gay Pride Parade.

    Cash is King in politics, and political payback is legal tender.

  10. 10.

    max

    MOSCOW — The International Olympic Committee said Thursday that it had no grounds to challenge a Russian law widely perceived as anti-gay, angering LGBT and human rights activists, who say they will make their case with sponsors and governments taking part in the Sochi Winter Olympics.

    But! (From September 14th), New York Times:

    Every two years, the United Nations adopts a resolution called the Olympic Truce, a perfunctory statement that invokes the ancient Greeks and celebrates friendly competition and “the cause of peace.” It usually passes with little deliberation. But not this year.

    One paragraph needs to be moved up from the bottom of the story:

    Past truces, including the one that Britain sponsored for the 2012 London Olympics, did not mention gay or transgender people. But this year, with global attention focused on the matter, countries are aiming to set a precedent of inclusion.

    Now the meat of it:

    While world leaders grappled with the crisis unfolding in Syria, a lesser debate was unfolding at the United Nations over the truce, which was drafted by Russia and became the latest example of the complicated politics swirling around next year’s Sochi Winter Games.

    The controversy was over a rough draft of the truce that mentioned a promise to include “people of different age, sex, physical capacity, religion, race and social status,” according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. It made no mention of gay or transgender people, a particularly sensitive omission given the uproar in the West over a Russian law that has been criticized as antigay.

    United Nations representatives from around the world spent weeks pushing Russia to amend the language to include gay people, according to interviews with representatives from eight countries. This week, after extensive negotiations behind the scenes, Russia altered the truce’s language to say that it would “promote social inclusion without discrimination of any kind.”

    And they already promised to honor the truce. So, short of repealing the law (not going to happen), folks are getting everything they want. That is, gay athletes can attend without being arrested and the rainbow flag can be worn/flown. (That’s how Olympic truces are supposed to work.)

    max
    [‘Need to boycott something that actually affects Russia solely.’]

  12. 12.

    scav

    I’m fully expecting bare-chested preening to be discovered a winter sport and added to the line-up, just in the (probanly vain) hope that Putin will get it out of his system and allow some other athletes up on the steppy things with gold round their necks for a change. Not that I’ll be watching it.

  13. 13.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven:

    This, this, this.

    Avery Brundage, fascist shitstain, was the biggest bullhorn on the “amateur” status thing.

  14. 14.

    ? Martin

    @PeakVT:

    ETA: The Olympics is fun and all, but $50B?!? That’s about enough to build a new stadium for every football AND every baseball team in America.

    They’re doing a ton of basic infrastructure at the same time, plus building a Formula 1 venue. Half the money is coming from Russian corporations, so they’ve got other motives here. It’s stupid to get outraged at the costs. If California won a future olympics, we’d probably bundle our high-speed rail plans in with it in some way. But that doesn’t mean the rail wouldn’t have happened without the Olympics. Basically Sochi got to very high profile events to their city within the same year and are using that to justify a bunch of long-needed build-out with the intention that the city remain a popular destination afterward. Same as Rio is doing with their World Cup/Olympic bids.

  17. 17.

    Chyron HR

    @Ben Franklin:

    Whereas the True Progressive worship of Putin (on the sole grounds that he stuck it to Obummer) is in no way dismissive of the struggles of Ls, Gs, Bs, OR Ts.

  18. 18.

    Long Tooth

    I say throw the Greeks a bone and make Greece the permanent home of the summer Olympic Games. These perennial political drama’s that play out every 4 years– not to mention the perennial corruption involved in the selection process– aren’t worth it the headaches they cause.

  19. 19.

    Ben Franklin

    @Chyron HR:

    Putin worship? Nyet. But the wide gap seen by putative progressives is a measure for a different graven image with a lighter shade of grey.

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Long Tooth:

    Are you kidding? The corruption is what the IOC is all about! These guys get whined and dined by all these cities…it’s what the fabulously wealthy aspire to…free food and drink and blow and hookers paid for, ultimately, by the fucking ungrateful peasants! What’s not to like?

  27. 27.

    beltane

    @Amir Khalid: Yes, they did. It’s sports, and as long as there have been athletic competitions there have been people profiting off of these competitions in one way or another.

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