Rachel Shukert: "The traditional powerhouses of the Winter Olympics—the countries where people are very, very good at things like ski jumping and the luge, tend to be right in the heart of the Aryan Country: your Austrians, your Germans, your Swedes, your Danes. I mean, the Nordic combined—it’s right there in the title, people. These also tend to be the countries with the most enlightened policies toward LGBT people (after that little blip from 1933 to 1945, that is). And I didn’t think the IOC would do this to them. The Israelis, yes. But some big gay (or gay-friendly) ubermensch from Norway, while the whole world watches? Not on your life. I guess it just goes to show you, it’s a slippery slope, the most recent modern embodiment of Martin Niemöller’s famous “First they came …” principle. Whenever a governing body is allowed to deem the mere insistence of a group’s simple right to exist, openly and without fear, to be a question of “politics,” nobody is safe. Not even the Swedes. Not even the Swiss. To paraphrase Shirley Bassey: Your games are a sham, ’til you can say, hey world, I am what I am. And it’s a problem not even ice dancing can fix."
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 18:16:23 +0000
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