Senior Russian sports official: No one wants gay naked Nazis at the Olympics

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. I’m almost feeling sorry for the Russian government at this point.  It simply can’t help itself.

The latest numbskull to shoot himself in the foot is Russia’s World Cup Chief, Alexey Sorokin.

In an interview with World Football Insider, Sorokin, while defending Russia’s draconian new anti-gay law, compared gays to Nazis, and then went on about how no one wants naked gay people running around the Olympics.  Sorokin also invoked the too-smart-by-half lie about the anti-gay law that I talked about yesterday.

Russian World Cup head, and FIFA rep, Alexey Sorokin.

First off, Sorokin tried to claim that the law doesn’t ban gay people, it just bans “gay propaganda.”  Of course, what do the Russians consider gay propaganda?  A gay Olympic athlete showing up at an official Olympic event with his husband.

Then Sorokin went off on some weird tangent about how no one wants a “World Cup where naked people are running around displaying their homosexuality.” I don’t know about you, but I think I might enjoy that.  Though I’m not entirely sure what this has to do with gay people.

And then came the Nazi comparison.

“The Olympics and World Cup are not a stage for various views… not for Nazis, not for any other ways of life.”

Of course, the irony is that the Russian authorities have no problem with Nazis, so long as they’re kidnapping gay teenagers and torturing them.

Finally, Sorokin pulled the “we’re not going to arrest anyone, unless of course we arrest them” argument that the Russians have been making for a while now.

Sorokin said Russia had given assurances from high-level government officials that the law would not affect athletes or fans “unless someone intends to be actively involved in the propaganda of this”.

“They have nothing more to fear. They have guarantees and assurances that they will not be affected. The minister of sport [Vitaly Mutko] has given a full and detailed explanation.

Mutko was our other Russian foot-in-mouth friend, who was the first to spill the beans that the Russians planned to jail Olympic athletes, guests and media.  Then yesterday, the Russian Interior Ministry confirmed what Mutko had been saying all along, that the Russians would jail any Olympic athletes, fans, or media who violate its terrifyingly-vague anti-gay “propaganda” law.

Back to Sorokin.  Did you catch what he did there?  Sorokin claims that athletes and fans to Russian sporting events like the World Cup and the Sochi Olympic won’t be affected by the new anti-gay propaganda law, unless of course, Sorokin add, foreign athletes and fans violate the anti-gay propaganda law, in which case the Russians will throw their sorry asses in a gulag.

Glad Sorokin could clarify this for us.  I’m sure the 2018 World Cup in Russia is going to be a blast with Sorokin running it.

Speaking of Nazis…

 John Aravosis
@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and article archive.

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Senior IOC member raises specter of taking Winter Olympics away from Russia

An interesting quote buried in an AP piece yesterday about Russia’s brutal crackdown on its gay and trans citizens.  Apparently, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee just raised the specter of the IOC taking the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi away from Russia.

More from AP, via the Denver Post:

In the meantime, the International Olympic Committee is coming under pressure to take a tougher line and demand that Russia respect the Olympic Charter’s rules against discrimination.One senior IOC member even suggested taking the games away from Russia if no solution is found.

“They have accepted the words of the Olympic Charter and the host city contract, so either they respect it or we have to say goodbye to them,” said Gerhard Heiberg of Norway.

Heiberg, who organized the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer and is chairman of the IOC marketing commission, said the IOC should stay out of domestic Russian politics but must be firm on wat happens during the Sochi Games.

The problem for the IOC, and the world, is that this goes far beyond the Sochi Winter Olympics and two weeks in February of 2014.

First off, good luck assuring anyone that the gay, trans, and lgbt-friendly, Olympic athletes are going to be safe.  How do you assure, and ensure, such a thing?  We’re to take the word of a virulent anti-gay country, with virulently anti-gay leaders, with a growing history of violence against gay and trans people, that they’ll stop hating us for the two weeks of the Winter Olympics?  Really.  How exactly does that work?

Especially with the fascist neo-Nazi skinheads that the Russian government has at best ignored, and at worst enabled.  How exactly does the IOC guarantee that Russia’s neo-Nazis aren’t going to attack, or kidnap, any gay, trans, or LGBT-friendly athletes or visitors to the Sochi Games?  Are we going to take the Hilter-devotees’ word for it that they’ll play nice for 2 weeks?

And how exactly do you convince the Russian people, who have been whipped up into an anti-gay frenzy by Vladmir Putin’s henchmen, that they’re not supposed to act on the nudge-nudge-wink-wink suggestion that gays are somehow sub-human, that comes from the state-controlled media, during those two weeks in February?

Harvey Fierstein is right.  The situation has gotten too far out of control to accept some perverted promise to stop kidnapping, beating and killing gay and trans people for two weeks during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics – thus admitting that it’s okay to kidnap, beat and kill gay and trans people the other 50 weeks of the year.  There is no choice left but for Russia to repeal it’s horrifically anti-gay law, or Russia loses the Olympics. Here’s the statement Harvey released this weekend:

“I was glad to see President Obama upset by the abuse the LGBT community is suffering at the hands of the Russian government, but outrage is not enough.

These are NOT bullies saying unkind things in a schoolyard. These are heads of state enacting a national policy of bigotry aimed at limiting the freedoms of an entire minority.

Finally the IOC realized that the Games cannot go on while these anti-gay laws stand. But suspension of these laws for two weeks is not enough.

Our lives, our families, our freedom are endangered while laws like these are tolerated anywhere in the world. We demand the repeal of Putin’s propagandistic legislation.

We now put the world community on notice that we are no longer available to be your scapegoats.

Enough.”

Russia simply isn’t safe for gay and trans people, nor for anyone who dares think, or say, that gay and trans people are human beings.

It was easy for Vladimir Putin to make gay and trans people Russia’s “new Jews,” to give the Russian people an enemy they can really hate, so that they can forget what a lousy leader Vladimir Putin really is.  But it’s quite another thing entirely to call off the angry mob once you’ve given them torches and pitchforks and told them the monster is at the gates.

 John Aravosis
@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and article archive.

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