From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/15/gay-playwright-calls-out-chris-hayes-for-dismissing-lgbt-boycott-of-russian-olympics/
By David Ferguson
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Tony award-winning actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein slammed MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Wednesday over the way “All In with Chris Hayes” dismissed proposed boycotts of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia over the country’s draconian anti-LGBT laws that ban “gay propaganda.” Fierstein said that to award Russia the prestige and profit of hosting the games is not appropriate and that “when evil shows its face, you have to answer.”
Fierstein was responding to a segment from Tuesday night’s “All In” called “Why boycotting the Olympics won’t help Russian gays” in which Olympic tennis gold medalist Gigi Fernandez and New Republic writer Julia Ioffe both said that to boycott the Olympics would be a waste of time and effort.
Fernandez said, “I’ve never been a proponent of mixing politics with sports. There are so many athletes that this is their one moment. Many athletes were really hurt in 1980 when we boycotted Russia. I think it sends the wrong message. It hurts the wrong people. I’m not a proponent of it.”
LGBT activist Richard Socarides said that the question on the table is one of people’s safety. He said that the games should be moved, that the IOC should stick to its charter of not having games in nations that discriminate openly, an idea that Hayes seemed to find ridiculous, laughingly calling that iteration “a cut-rate version” of the games.
Ioffe opined that she has lived in Russia and that Russians believe that homosexuality comes from the West. Boycotts and protests, she said, will just be seen by Russians as Western histrionics. “If anything,” she said, “it might make it worse” on Russia’s LGBT population.
Continue reading at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/15/gay-playwright-calls-out-chris-hayes-for-dismissing-lgbt-boycott-of-russian-olympics/
