Olympic protections to cover sexual orientation

by Anthony Glassman

Monaco--The International Olympic Committee added sexual orientation to its Sixth Fundamental Principle of Olympism in a unanimous vote on December 8.

The IOC held its 127th session in Monaco, and voting on Olympic Agenda 2020, a set of 40 recommendations for taking the Olympic games forward, was expected to last two days, but support for the proposals was so great that it concluded in a single day.

The 14th recommendation called for ?the IOC to include non-discrimination on sexual orientation in the 6th Fundamental Principle of Olympism,? Each of the 40 recommendations received a unanimous vote of all 96 members at the meeting.

?There were no votes against and no abstentions. As an additional show of unity for Olympic Agenda 2020, the members gave unanimous support for the entire set of recommendations in an en bloc vote at the close of today?s meeting,? an IOC release said.

The issue of sexual orientation was central to the 2014 Winter Olympics, which were held nine months ago in Sochi, Russia. The Russian parliament approved legislation last year that prohibited pro-gay ?propaganda? from being disseminated to minors. There are multifarious problems with the law, the primary one being that there is no clear definition of ?gay propaganda,? meaning that two people of the same sex holding hands could be arrested under the law.

During the Olympics, some advocates were arrested for carrying signs proclaiming the 6th Principle, which rejects discrimination. Despite it not having anything specifically to do with sexual orientation, and until December 8 not including sexual orientation, authorities viewed the signs as being ?gay propaganda.?

The first real test of the expansion of the 6th Principle will come with the 2022 Winter Olympics, which will be hosted either by Beijing, China or Almaty, Kazakhstan. Neither country currently has explicit anti-gay laws, but the Kazakh government is looking at passing an anti-propaganda law like Russia?s.