U.S. Olympic officials said on Tuesday
that they would not stop athletes attending the Winter Olympics in
Russia from showing support for gay rights.
“I want to make it very clear that we
have not asked our athletes not to speak up,” Scott Blackmun, chief
executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee said during a press
conference from Park City, Utah. “What we are doing is: We're
trying to make sure our athletes are aware of the law and aware of
the possibility of consequences. Our job first and foremost is to
make sure they're safe while they're in Russia.”
The Russian law in question, approved
in June, prohibits the promotion of “gay propaganda” to minors.
Its passage has provoked calls for a boycott of the Winter Olympics
in Sochi.
Blackmun added that the USOC supports
an amendment to the Olympic Charter to ban discrimination based on
sexual orientation.
“There appears to be some confusion
about what the IOC [Olympic] Charter says about discrimination based
on sexual orientation,” he
said. “It says there will be no discrimination based on race,
religion, politics or gender. I think there are people who'd like to
see sexual orientation added to that list. We would support a change
in that direction. The way the IOC is structured, the USOC as an NOC
[National Olympic Committee] doesn't have a vote, but … I think
there are things we can do within.”
“First and foremost, we are a sports
organization. We're the only organization in the the world whose job
it is to make sure American athletes get a chance to compete in the
Olympic Games. We are not an advocacy organization or a human rights
organization,” he said. (The video is embedded on this page.
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(Related: Olympian
Bode Miller calls Russian anti-gay law “absolutely embarrassing.”)