Teach Love

With all the hubbub surrounding the coming Olympics in Russia and their anti-gay laws, it seems prudent to be fully educated on background of the issue and think carefully about the affect our actions truly have. In Ancient Greece, the Olympics were held at the base of mount Olympia, the home of the gods, to showcase the world's strongest and greatest physical achievement. When the medals were awarded, they used the three tiered podium to show which men were closer to godliness and the heavens. These games were revived years ago to signify unity in the world and allow us to truly test our greatest athletes and compete to represent our nations in friendly, peaceful, non-violent means. They were seen as a period every four years when we would put aside our differences and come together in peace to celebrate being strong and being human. Clearly, these ideals have been somewhat forgotten as social media and the speed of modern life make us all global citizens and allow us constant connection with the world. 

The US was founded under ideals of religious freedom and the power of the people over their government. These principles bend and change with the times, permitting us to grow and evolve as a nation. Russia has been a religiously dominated country for centuries, oppressing the rights of women, minorities, and basically all of it's citizens that weren't heterosexual, White Russian orthodox males. Obviously as free and proud Americans, we find their strict laws heinous and unacceptable but we fail to see is that Russia is not the US. Their country is run by different ideals and principles and we only feed into the international perception of our country by trying to force our own ideas on someone else's government. Obviously, as a gay man, I do not support the choices of the Russians in charge, but I hardly think that boycotting Coca Cola (an American company) is going to change the opinion of the aging Catholics in charge on the other side of the world. When a child is being bullied, we teach them not to fight back. We teach them that the bully is insecure and scared and that feeding into their behavior will only make it worse. At what point in our upbringing do we forget this lesson? When did we decide that exclusion and anger were an effective way of fighting a problem? In the 1980s, when Harvey Milk fought to open the minds of Americans to gay rights, he earged members of our community to come out to everyone. He saw that the best way to fight ignorance was to stamp it out by showing people that gay men and women were a harmless and vital part of the society that they already knew. Perhaps, instead of boycotting the Olympics and Russia altogether, we should be edging gay athletes to participate and win. We should be working to open the minds of the Russians, not shutting them out. Ignorance stems from a lack of knowledge. They clearly understand hate very well so fight to teach them love. Trust your own government to protect you and your rights and fight for progression, not exclusion. Teach them love.