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So, on my FB page, I've recently been informed of the notion that athletes and news sources providing coverage on the event should boycott. Why?

Apparently Russia's legislature has cracked down on what they deem 'gay propaganda', that is targeted towards young audiences. In addition to that, it's court has prohibited gay pride parades, once again for being propaganda. In response to this LGBT groups are calling for a boycott on the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi. I won't pretend to know much on Russian politics/government, but lets discuss anyways, shall we.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on Russia's new laws? Does the boycott serve to help end these new laws? Should they be boycotted? etc.

(Alternatively, another proposed reason for boycotting, at least for American athletes, is that Edward Snowden is protected by Russia at the moment, I believe one of the congressmen mentioned the notion, so, feel free to share your thoughts on that too, if you want.)

Olympic boycotts really almost accomplish nothing: See 1980 and 1986 tit for tat Olympic boycotts.

As if Russia cares what people, especially protesters, think.

I'm conflicted on this. One the one hand, I do support gay rights, but on the other hand, I don't support extraditing Snowden…….

Eh, I never watch the Winter Olympics anyone so I guess that doesn't much matter to me.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on Russia’s new laws? Does the boycott serve to help end these new laws? Should they be boycotted? etc.

As Erin said, Russia doesn't really care what other people think. The boycott wouldn't change anything at all. Russia is a fairly homophobic country, at least thats the impression you get if you ask regular people. (The word Pydor/Pidor is used often these days.) These laws aren't going to get a lot of opposition from the regular Russian population, and Russia simply won't care about any protesters, both inside and outside the country.

I always wondered why Snowden picked Russia as the country to run to, considering that on the official level Russia does not have freedom of the press and it has selective internet censorship (mostly government related).

Ivan wrote:

I always wondered why Snowden picked Russia as the country to run to, considering that on the official level Russia does not have freedom of the press and it has selective internet censorship (mostly government related).

Probably gambling on Russia's past as a haven for US dissidents and Putin's pride in not bowing down to American demands for extradition.

Freaking meteor fucking explodes over Russia and the only people freaking out was the rest of the world.

I smile every time I see that pic, cause its was filmed as a joke for a talk show/comedy show.
In reality the dude was pretty fucking surprised and was swearing a lot.

Note: These opinions are from the perspective of an American viewer

I know that the Olympics are already pretty politics-heavy, and that America and Russia have had friction during the Olympics in the past, and I am a huge supporter of gay rights, but I don't see a point in involving the Olympics in the gay rights laws of a country. You can boycott the 2014 Olympics if you want, be my guest. Hell, even if you're an Olympic athlete and boycott it, that's your own personal decision and you should stick by it. However, when entire news networks in America are being pressured to not cover the Olympics because of a law that is in no way, shape, or form related to the Olympics (other than the location of the 2014 games), that is when I have a problem. It would be one thing if Russia did something like legalize something that is considered hugely unethical to the American public, but gay rights are still a shaky subject in America right now. Sure, we have made a lot of progress over the last few decades towards support of gay rights, but there is still a huge amount of American citizens that are not on that boat. So, if news stations in America decided to not broadcast the Olympics because of an unrelated law that passed in the host country, it would go beyond shoving the opinions of the news station down the people's throat and cross into the territory of controlling what the American people can and can not watch. Sure, this is the digital age and the Olympics are a worldwide event that could probably be viewed elsewhere, and if one news network refuses to broadcast, another network will pick it up, but this would still be a huge middle finger to the people who A.) don't support gay rights B.) Are indifferent to the matter, or C.) support gay rights, but do not want this law to affect their viewing of a sports event they love. Many people watch the Olympics on television because it is the most convenient way for them to view it, why do we have to fuck around with that? The only way I could see this being a good thing is if NBC decides to give up their ass backwards coverage of the games because of this (would not be surprising, considering how left the network is) and lets a different network cover the games for a change.

Just wondering what would happen if one of the more public athletes going to the Russia games comes out…….

Well, I don't necessarily think we're entitled to have Olympic coverage. If any potential major network says no because of the human rights violations, that's a good thing. Russia has just about become a Christian theocracy (Not quite there yet, but getting there) and they should realize that alienating the athletes like this can carry a price.

To me it really wouldn't care how many people support gay marriage, it's more about making the correct decision than the popular one.

Also, how is NBC a left network? The only leftness around is MSNBC, which Microsoft holds a massive share of, and is there to fill a gap anyway. NBC is owned by the giant monolith known as Comcast, and the NBC subsidiary CNBC is more right wing than FOX News.

It actually had to do with him not having a choice. He couldn't get transit to Venezuela.

Why boycott? If you wanna protest, dress up in drag or as leathermen or something.

I agree

Guess I'm not going

Durvarowe wrote:

Just wondering what would happen if one of the more public athletes going to the Russia games comes out…….

I seem to recall that that was what America tried to do when Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics: sent a bunch of ethnically mixed athletes to the games. I don't see how boycotting the Olympics helps anyone, but I do think that gay athletes should take an opportunity to be very openly gay during the games. That probably makes an even better statement.

As for Snowden, while the U.S. government is unhappy with him, I don't think being in Russia is about relative freedom of speech comparisons of our two countries. I think the U.S. has more freedom, but after what Snowden did, he's got limited options for residency so he takes what he can get. Even with less general freedom, Russia is going to be more free for Snowden in particular than the U.S. is right now, or perhaps ever, unfortunately.

burning_phoenix wrote:

Olympic boycotts really almost accomplish nothing: See 1980 and 1986 tit for tat Olympic boycotts.

Pardon my nit-picking, but I don't believe there were Olympic games in 1986 to boycott.

The main boycotts were in 76, 80, and 84.

so NOW the human rights activists decide to wake up?

nazi germany also held an olympics once, its horrid racist policy and rapid deportaion of jews was known to all but no one gave a shit.

but you know, foribidding people to parade around with rainbow flags is far, faaaar, worse…

People didn't know the extent of the Nazi's racist policies/activities till near the end of WW2.
No one said Russia's policies against homos are worse than the Nazis.
The human rights activists today hadn't been born yet at the time of the third reich.

You're dumb.

An interesting twist in events. Instead of, as previously mentioned, boycotting, LGBT groups advocated for the banning of Russia from participation in the Winter Olympics . LGBT groups recognized that boycotting punishes the athletes of other nations, and not Russia, but realized Russia's anti-gay stance violates several sections of the Olympic Charter. This has apparently been done before with South Africa in accordance with their Apartheid stance.

So, what do you think now? Is this more effective than a boycott? Is it fair for Russia to be banned from the Olympics (which, from what I understand, would still be held in Russia)? Do you think it would be possible to ban them?

except people did know about the naz;s racist activities way back in '35, the only thing the nazis were trying to hide was the their killing factories, untill then, they had no shame in their racism.

how about you learn a little bit of history?

im sorry i had to get off-topic but this kind of stupid false facts tick me off sometimes

Well, besides the deporting of the Jews, the games were actually pretty tamed as far as racial issues go. Hell, African-American Olympians told reporters that they was treated better in Nazi Germany than back in the United States.

Yeah… Punish the (Russian) athletes that probably don't think too much about the topic either way, I don't think that'd work, just piss em off. I agree with others that the best solution would be for athletes that support gay rights to show their support during the games, such as wearing a rainbow patch or something. I think passive-aggressive tactics tend to be more successful than outright aggressive ones.