This is just getting creepier every day.
The mayor of Sochi, host of the Winter Olympics, has said there are no gay people in the city.
Anatoly Pakhomov said homosexuals were welcome at the Games - as long as they "respect Russian law" and "don't impose their habits on others".
Do we really need to legitimize these views by participating in this corporate-sponsored boondoggle?
If he had said there were no "black people" in the city, or no "Jews" in the city, but they were welcome as long as they didn't impose their "habits" on others, would we even be there? Really?
[W]hen asked whether gay people had to hide their sexuality in Sochi, the Mayor said: "No, we just say that it is your business, it's your life. But it's not accepted here in the Caucasus where we live. We do not have them in our city."
When challenged, the mayor admitted that he was not certain there were no gay people in Sochi: "I am not sure, but I don't bloody know them."
BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney visited a gay bar in Sochi the night before he interviewed the mayor.
Most people did not want to be filmed and those that did were cautious about what they said.
What are we "gaining" out of this? I understand the Olympics are supposed to be above politics. I know the impact that
Jesse Owens is supposed to have had when he made Hitler look like a fool (whether that is historically accurate or not). Does that really matter? Ultimately it didn't do squat to change his behavior.
At the time of the 1936 Olympics, most American Jewish groups opposed participation in the Games:
American Jewish organizations, meanwhile, largely opposed the Olympics. The American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee staged rallies and supported the boycott of German goods to show their disdain for American participation...
* * *
Individual Jewish athletes from a number of countries chose to boycott the Berlin Olympics. In the United States, the American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee supported a boycott...[.]
As it turned out of course, there was no boycott in 1936. Look who made that decision back then:
Those involved in the debate on whether or not to boycott the Olympics included Ernest Lee Jahncke, Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, and future IOC President Avery Brundage. Some within the United States considered requesting a boycott of the Games, as to participate in the festivity might be considered a sign of support for the Nazi regime and its anti-Semitic policies. However, others such as Brundage (see below) argued that the Olympic Games should not reflect political views, but rather should be strictly a contest of the greatest athletes.
Avery Brundage, then of the United States Olympic Committee, opposed the boycott, stating that Jewish athletes were being treated fairly and that the Games should continue. Brundage asserted that politics played no role in sports, and that they should never be entwined. Brundage also believed that there was a "Jewish-Communist conspiracy" that existed to keep the United States from competing in the Olympic Games[.]
Is this really the precedent we want to follow?
Meanwhile this mafia state and its leaders are looking for international prestige and corporations like Coca-Cola and P & G are looking the other way while they give it to them.
This is just ugly. You can't paint over it.