“We consider ourselves like normal, standard people…”
Some consider it pro-traditional family, others the height of anti-gay legislation. However you look at Russia’s new law against the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors,” everyone will agree that Russian track and field champion Yelena Isinbayeva’s response to fellow athletes’ symbolic acts of solidarity has stoked the flames of controversy, as reported by Fox News of New York on Aug.15, 2013.
In the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recently signing a law making it illegal for any Russian citizen under the age of 18 to publicly advocate “non-traditional” sexual relationships, a hue and cry have arisen from gay rights advocates in the West.
Case in Point…
Competing in the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, two Swedish athletes painted the rainbow colors of the so-called Gay Pride flag on their fingernails as a show of solidarity with gays and lesbians. High jumper Emma Green Tregaro and 200-meter sprinter Moa Hjelmer made a point of flying their colors during the competition in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, site of the 1980’s Summer Olympics.
The Other Side of the Coin…
Despite some activists calling for their nations to boycott the 2014 Olympics in the Russian resort city of Sochi, two-time Gold Medalist Yelena Isinbayeva made headlines by supporting her nation’s overt support of traditional family values.
Pole vaulter Isinbayeva simultaneously delivered a blistering condemnation of homosexuality as well as defending Mother Russia when she stated:
If we allow to promote and do all this stuff on the street, we are very afraid about our nation because we consider ourselves like normal, standard people. We just live with boys with woman, woman with boys.
Everything must be fine. It comes from history. We never had any problems, these problems in Russia, and we don’t want to have any in the future.
Russia’s new law prohibits minors from public displays of support of “non-traditional” sexuality as defined as male with male, female with female, bisexuality, and transgender.
UPDATE: According to French wire service Agence France Presse, Swedish high jumper Emma Green-Tregaro has repainted her nails after being warned by the IAAF that the rainbow colours she sported in qualification in support of gay rights were a breach of regulations.
