President Barack Obama rejects calls to boycott Olympics over anti-gay law
President Obama has rejected calls from some LGBT activists to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
“I know that one question that’s been raised is, how do we approach the Olympics? I want to just make very clear right now I do not think it’s appropriate to boycott the Olympics. We’ve got a bunch of Americans out there who are training hard, who are doing everything they can to succeed,” Obama said.
“Nobody’s more offended than me by some of the anti-gay and lesbian legislation that you’ve been seeing in Russia, but as I said just this week, I’ve spoken out about that not just with respect to Russia but with a number of other countries, where we continue to do work with them but we have a strong disagreement on this issue.”” Obama said
He continued: “One thing I’m really looking forward to is maybe some gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze, which i think would go a long way in rejecting the kind of attitudes were seeing there. And if Russia doesn’t have gay or lesbian athletes, it’ll probably make their team weaker.”
