This week 52 Olympians — including former medalists and 12 Sochi competitors — signed onto a statement criticizing the Russian government, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and multinational sponsors for not doing more to pressure Russia to repeal its ban on "exposing minors to homosexual propaganda.”
The Guardian reports:
The signatories to the so-called "principle six" campaign – named after the clause in the Olympic charter that supposedly guarantees non-discrimination – include the American snowboarding gold medallist Seth Wescott, the Sochi-bound Canadian biathlete Rosanna Crawford and the Australian four-man bobsled team… tennis players Martina Navratilova and Andy Roddick, the former Leeds United footballer Robbie Rogers, and the four-time gold-medal-winning diver Greg Louganis.”
The Guardian mentions that although IOC president Thomas Bach recently said that athletes could make pro-equality statements at Olympic press conferences, his assurance was “immediately contradicted by the Sochi 2014 chief executive, Dmitry Chernyshenko, who said athletes who wished to speak out against the anti-gay legislation would have to do so in a special "protest zone", 11 miles (18km) from the Olympic Village.”
So far, Russia's notorious anti-gay law has overshadowed Olympic marketing efforts by sponsors such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's and has been used to prosecute a Russian newspaper who reported on an openly gay geography teacher, gay activists who unfurled a large rainbow flag in front of the Arkhangelsk Parlaiment, the founders of an online gay support group, and four Dutch filmmakers making a documentary about LGBT life in Russia.
