Should Russia be Allowed to Host Olympics?

[platedlizard]

Russia's law has led to a massive increase in the amount of anti-LBGTQ hate crimes. I won't go into details because they're pretty horrible, but people have been attacking LBGTQ people, taping the attacks, and posting them publicly and the police do nothing about this. These aren't just beatings, I'm talking about torture and rape. Really horrible stuff. Supposedly the law was to protect children, but many of the victims of these attacks are LBGTQ teens so how are they being 'protected'?

That said, unless they just cancel the Olympics this year there is no way it can be taken away from Russia. And there's no way they'd cancel it. It's far too late to switch to a different location, it takes years to build the Olympic Village and competition areas. Remember, Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics, that was far worse than Russia.

[MinervaClay]

So here I'm going to end up on my soapbox about western privilege.

"Allowed to host the olympics" is a powerful indicator in itself of how western culture feels the right to dominate or dictate what is right, wrong, and okay in the rest of the world. Just about any country should be allowed to host the olympics. Our personal cultural preferences have nothing to do with it, or America should never host it, lest some arabic nation decide us heathen swine don't deserve to do it because a lot of people over here eat BEEF.

Yes, Russia is perfectly entitled.

Furthermore this issue is being compounded by Obama using it as a platform to make a statement. After Putin thoroughly embarassed him over Syria, and then refused to hand over Snowden to his demands, don't you think it's a bit of a coinkidink the ambassadors he's sending are to publicly poke him in the eye in a way to put him under international scrutiny? Isn't that a little childish even? For all of the countries that have anti-gay, or anti-this-that-the-other-things laws put out--for all the women dying in civilized countries that still forbid any form of pregnancy termination to even save lives--where are the bold, shocking political moves to those decisions?

People are perfectly entitled to boycott Russian products, that's fine.

But nobody has the right to strip them of hosting the olympics.

Believe it or not, we don't own the world, and while we can feel what is right and wrong and hope for it in our own borders, we can't enforce it on the world. That's why a lot of the world hates America right now. Anyone who believes in the great big american police force and us doing what's right by babysitting and demanding of the outside world--tune into Harry Fear's feed sometime. I spent nights praying for that man's safety while the Gaza strip was under siege. Outside of what our media tells us to think, there are shocking entire scopes of reality you need to be willing to even look at before you can be deprogrammed from our limited social paradigms.

[crazyflight]

MinervaClay:
Let's just start off by saying that I respect you as an individual, although I disagree with you. Anything I say from here is with all due respect, and I don't want to offend you in any way.

I don't understand your connotation with Arabs and beef, and if it was purely stereotypical ignorance, then I hope you know that you can offend some people like that. If I were a Muslim and I read that, I would be outraged.
Hindus can't eat beef. Muslims can and do eat beef. Although most Arabic cuisines use other meats instead of beef, it's pork that the Qu'ran forbids Muslims from eating.

Even if you did mean pork, your argument would still be invalid. Taking this "not being allowed to host the Games" and throwing religion into it just doesn't make sense. If America hosted the Olympic Games, which it has, our government absolutely will not put into jeopardy the right of Arabic Islamic athletes to not eat pork. The U.S. has no laws forcing people to eat pork.

The line is crossed when the laws affect those participating in the Olympic Games. If Russia is planning on prohibiting players from playing based on said athletes' open "non-traditional" orientation or support for said "non-traditional" orientations, then they should not be allowed to host. No country should dictate what is right and wrong within another country - you're right about that. However, the Olympics is an international event. With this, it would be unjust for a player to be banned from competing because they support a universal right that all people deserve. On top of this, the Olympics is respectful of members of all communities, so anti-LGBT, racist, sexist, etc. comments/statements should not be accepted.
(I'm going off of the Universal Doctrine of Human Rights on the "rights that all people deserve" comment - articles 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 16)

What Obama did isn't childish. Your bias (or so it seems; correct me if I'm wrong) against him seems to have led you to connect Syria and this delegation. I never made that connection, but I do support his protest against Russia's anti-LGBT propaganda laws. The opportunity to protest certainly presented itself. I don't know where else a move like that could have happened, and if you do, I'd love to hear it.

While I don't exactly agree that America has to be the world's police force, I do believe that it is the world's responsibility to protect the basic, unalienable rights of all of its people. The U.S. taking a stand against it shouldn't be much different from any country protesting them. It's more of the United Nations' role to do actually do something about it (without infringing on national sovereignty, of course).
This thread is devoted to our opinion on the matter, not that of any specific country. I don't remember any country trying to specifically tell Russia to repeal its laws. The U.S. is not alone in opposing the laws, so it's unfair and biased to be targeting them specifically.

So, basically, yes, there should be a situation where Russia would not be allowed to host the Games, for reasons above. It's just not going to happen, so there's no real point in continuing discussion on that front.

Also, your last sentence piqued my curiosity - do you have any links that could show me an "entire scope of reality?"

Welp, most of this turned into nonsense. Oh well. .-. I hope you understand me. This was all
done on my phone, so I apologize in advance for any difficulties.

[MinervaClay]

Muslims can only eat Halal Beef, and trust me, what we americans eat isn't Halal. Considering I'm rooming with a set of arabic muslims at the shelter, and watch them have to get specific food differences each day, please don't try to correct me on that. You're right, they can't do pork, either; and that's haram, and an absolute no-no.

And yes, throwing religion in does make sense; the fear of homosexuality has been largely cultivated by the impregnation of the world by religious doctrines. Large cultures before the spread of christianization and muslim expansion, among other things, were actually quite welcoming of homosexuality. The connection of one religious overstep to another is perfectly admissable.

Right now, everyone's just assuming what Putin is going to do about it, like he wants to make WWIII international incident out of arresting and deporting gays on international television. Let's be realistic, that's not going to happen.

If Obama actually cared about homosexual rights rather than using it as a podium every now and then, there would have been far more domestic measures taken in the last several years. He hasn't. It's always been traitorous to the people who support it. It's amazing he only cares when there's some political gambit to be had out of it, or point to be made.

My "bias" against Obama is by witness to the gross international misdeeds. We can drone bomb children overseas, we don't care about the gays at home unless approval ratings are involved, but lets send them out to make some sort of political statement at someone who just happened to tick me off repeatedly? Are people really this short sighted politically? For the record, I'm not a republican. At all. Obama just turns my stomach.

As long as Russia doesn't make international incident out of it (while surrounding countries riot and try to make international incident out of it), they're perfectly entitled to run the games regardless of belief. Yes, the law has caused extreme criminal activity, but the law was also largely repealed very quickly, while people continue to sink their fangs in and try to make some issue out of something that really has marginally anything to do with the olympics. The law is specifically against homosexual propaganda--and I really don't see why anyone needs to flaunt their sexuality while running track or swimming. They're perfectly permitted to do so. Now sending a gay delegation is very propaganda-laced. We're pushing them on purpose.

If you want to start looking outside of mainstream media resources, as you asked for a link, start with harry fear. He can similarly direct you to any number of resources for other areas. His focus is namely the gaza strip. As my in laws rioted about Gaza and pitched fits about how horrible the palestinians were and the terrorists and Israel defended itself--just like the news implied--I sat and listened to the drones go over this man's head, watched his power get knocked out, go offline, thousands of people begging for his safe return only to find families had been exploded under the sheer suspicion that they might be housing weapons. Usually they weren't. Colleges got targetted. Radio stations. International war ethics and laws were being broken rampantly, and we never heard about it over here unless you watched someone like Harry.

Meanwhile, we quibble over what might-maybe happen at the olympics, and talk about who should and shouldn't "have the right" to host it, because gays get roughed up in their area. Here's a reality check: I'm extremely gay-leaning. I've had one male relationship in my life, and it's landed me here at this shelter. I've had only commited female relationships. It's not that I dislike homosexuals, or disagree, or whatever, but we have more to gripe about than some people getting beat up on the street for being gay; let's be realistic--it happens here, too. It just went through a surge over there.

Nobody is going to take the olympics from them because they have a different social structure than what we personally prefer.

[crazyflight]

Okay, well, my source didn't say that. xD Defeat accepted.
Although I'm sure there are America Muslims who do eat beef. I don't know.

I don't really see your point about religion, though. Russia has no official religion, IIRC, and many Russians aren't religious. I just don't see how your comment relates to mine. .-.

What Putin does or doesn't do is extremely important, and I think that Olympic athletes need to know Russia's policies towards them.

Obama does not have the power to write legislation. That is the job of the Congress. They obviously haven't been doing so well, almost entirely because of the disagreements between party members. There are many members of Congress (mostly Conservative) who shoot down any LGBT rights law. For example, Obama has stated that he will sign ENDA into law if it is passed. It hasn't yet.
I'm not going to blame either side for our pathetically ineffective government (although it was the Tea Party loonies who shut it down).

I will admit that I'm not a huge Obama fan either. There are other people that I would prefer to be President - Obama is very cowardly, but there really aren't many politicians who wouldn't have done the things that you said. Doing things for approval ratings is an everyday routine for politicians. I also abhor drone bombings, and it's a huge tarnish on Obama's Presidency. I won't defend it because it doesn't deserve defending.
However, I still don't believe that Obama is sending people loke Billie Jean King to Russia because of Putin's "embarrassing" him. There's nowhere to go with that point, though.

Just the fact that a gay man can't hold his boyfriend's hand in Russia in fear of being arrested is enough for me to assume that any little thing - a rainbow flag, a Twitter post, perhaps - could lead to Russian persecution of a gay athlete or a supporter of gay rights.

We used to see what was actually happening in the world, back then. Like, for example, during the Vietnam War, Americans saw heaps of gorey details. However, now, most people don't even know where are troops are or what's going on. The ignorance of modern Americans is probably a result of the newspapers not wanting to print what they should be printing, and instead printing anything that will make them money.
However, I see what you mean about putting things in perspective. It disgusts me as well.

Well, yeah, we do. We absolutely do. I really like what you're saying - I really do. My mom talks about it all the time, but I don't know what I can say.

[MinervaClay]

There's a lot of things Obama "doesn't have the power to do" that he's done anyway. He's completely overstepped other boundaries, and advocated very hard on policies he personally wanted done. His vestment in the homosexual community is shallow at best. If he put the same willingness to overstep on other laws and conventions on the homosexual community as he did on, say... war, or citizen privacy, we'd have gay marriage done and that's it. I just find it incredibly coincidental that after the double-slap to the face Putin gave him, he's going to go poke him in the eye with this sentiment and put him under the spotlight of surrounding countries. Using sexuality to brew political tension is the wrong way to go, it's only going to further cleave the rift of belief and preference more violently apart, and leave tension. It would suck to cause WWIII over the fact that someone likes their own gender. This is not the right way to make a statement. To all the meetings and global events you could send them to... this is it? Come on, now. All he's going to do is rub Russia raw with it. They're literally politically weaponizing the topic of sexuality now.

I don't like Russia's policy on homosexuals, but when it comes down to it, it's just a cultural difference. We can't expect or demand every culture match our beliefs, and we can't say another nation doesn't deserve the rights to host it. Because by their standards, maybe we don't deserve to host it, because we like queers.

And it's more than just what the news papers "want". Almost all american television is owned by a very few companies, who are collectively all owned by the same big businesses, big pharma, big agriculture industries. The government is a rotating door of big business executives being put in positions to vouch for the companies they just came from. The overlap is terrifying if you can dare to look at it. What we're told, what we're taught, and what we're shown is controlled. Even contrasting views tend to bubble up and distract the population at incredibly convenient times. Who cares about our political and privacy lierties being taken away? Some racial-oriented crime just happened! Nevermind that happens every day. Yes, it's sad. But why is it whenever something horrific is going on in the government, the masses manage to get reduced to bickering about white versus black, or straight versus gay to the point nobody sees the other issues? Am I the only one who finds alarm in this?

We have been polarized against ourselves. We walk into the same slaughterhouse on voting day, be it red or blue, and expect a different outcome. We're fed what to believe, and what to even be angry about.

I really see this entire Olympics issue as about the same. It's another bloated, flaming wreck of using a hot button issue (like sexuality) to detract from the actual problems going on. And if he gets to pee Putin's pot at the same time? So be it.

[tornadofan2]

I don't think Russia should be allowed to host the Olympics. I do not support Russia in their laws that they ban homosexual marriages/relationships, it's stupid. Let people be who they are, gay or not.

But, that's not the biggest bother for me. Lately, Russia has been capturing orcas, tearing them away from their family's. They plan to use some of those orcas in the opening ceremony in the Sochi Winter Olympics, which I think is definitely stupid. The fact that we don't exactly know if the population of orcas in Russia is sustainable enough to capture killer whales, is already a problem. They've also captured a group of eighteen belugas who the Vancouver Aquarium has been trying to get. Luckily, they're hindered.

Also, there seems evidence that SeaWorld helped capture these killer whales and or belugas. This is not yet confirmed if this is true or not, but either way, cetaceans just don't belong in captivity. A lot of them have strong family bonds and are mentally traumatized by being removed from their families. This can lead to all kinds of physical and mental problems alike, like agression towards their trainers.

So for me, the biggest thing are the cetaceans they'll be using in the opening ceremony which I'm very angry about and I don't support any facility that keeps cetaceans in captivity, captive-born or wild-caught.

[Firstborn Dragon]

Well I think a better question is, should people BOYCOTT the Olympics? Me personally I refuse to watch them. And I know there's a number of athletes, GLTB or not, who are boycotting the Olympics on the principal that either:

A) Non strait athletes are in danger, DESPITE the weak promise that nothing will happen to them. (Don't forget that even though Russa says they will not charge people who are athletes who aren't strait under their laws, who's to say they won't get charged on some trumped up charges instead?)

B) Strait athletes don't agree with this law, and refuse to support Russia despite this.

On another matter, and that's not including the cetacean issue above, is that slave labor was used to build some of the event areas. And there are a number of other heath, safety, and freedom issues that just aren't being addressed because the GLBT issues are taking center stage.

In the end, I think that these Olympics will fail because too many will boycott them for various reasons. The whole point of the Olympics is to promote world peace. There are too many issues facing Russia that in the end run against the very spirit of the games.

[MinervaClay]

Boycotting is a perfectly fair option. And that is within the rights of every person to do.

I just wish people would put the same effort into boycotting other things as they do when hot button sexuality/fluffy animals being hurt issues come up. Boycotting Kelloggs and Coca Cola for poisoning us is too difficult; Russia doesn't like gays? Stretch out new reasons thereafter to boycott the olympics. I just find it sad what people will criticize and focus on in outside countries while ignoring their own.

[Tekla]

I just wish people would put the same effort into boycotting other things as they do when hot button sexuality/fluffy animals being hurt issues come up. Boycotting Kelloggs and Coca Cola for poisoning us is too difficult; Russia doesn't like gays? Stretch out new reasons thereafter to boycott the olympics. I just find it sad what people will criticize and focus on in outside countries while ignoring their own.

Because it takes effort and a willingness to see things from an objective rather than a subjective mindset to determine the truth from the lies we have been fed our entire lives. The media frequently downplays (or way over exaggerates) many things and it is very, very difficult to find unbiased news, which makes it extremely difficult to determine truth from lies. Crosschecking with news sources from other countries helps, but those sources can ALSO be very biased.

~~~

Religion inserts itself into this debate because the only reason against homosexuality and other sexualities is pretty much solely religion-based in Catholicism/Christianity and other anti-homosexual religions. Being for or against non-traditional sexualities is entirely based in an individual's moral code, and frankly no one has the right to impose someone else's morals onto another.

And no matter how much people argue against homosexuality from a biological standpoint, there is always the counterpoint that many animals have homosexual relations and sex not for the purpose of reproduction (as an example, many swan pairs have been found to be homosexual over the years, and horses have been observed having sex outside of heat cycles). (And no matter how much humans like to hold themselves above animals, we are still animals too.)

~~~

That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Russia hosting the Olympics. They, like any other country, should be able to host it without the allowance of the rest of the world. We do not police the world.

What is wrong here is Russia's maltreatment of homosexuals and other non-traditional sexualities. What is also wrong is any intention to uphold a ban on non-traditional-sexuality athletes. The Olympics is an international sporting event. What should be important here is the SPORTS, not who's in bed with who.