Back in 1976 when I edited the magazine Sportsworld, then the official publication of the British Olympic Association, I received a telephone call from a Melbourne radio station in the middle of the night following the British figure skater John Curry’s breathtakingly artistic gold medal-winning performance in the Innsbruck Winter games.
“Hi,” said an Aussie voice. “We’ve all been watching your guy John Curry win the Olympics. Isn’t he something? Understand you know him quite well.” I concurred that indeed I did.
“Great. Look, mate, would you mind telling us a bit more about him – we’re all keen to know. Can we go live with an interview now?” “No problem,” I replied.
“OK... We’ve got Alan Hubbard, editor of Sportsworld magazine live from London, who knows this Pommie skater John Curry we’re all talking about... Tell me Alan, is he a poofter?”
I recall I quickly mumbled something about his sexual orientation being his own business. “Well,” came the response, “he sure looks a poofter from here!”
Thankfully, things have moved on since then – even in Australia. But not, apparently, in Russia and, significantly, certain other discriminatory outposts, including Qatar, which follows Russia as World Cup hosts in 2022, and where being gay, as the late Curry eventually revealed he was, is still tantamount to being a pariah...
Alan Hubbard writing in The Independent leading into talking about you-know-what.
Illustrated with the above photo of the "flamboyant" American figure skater, Johnny Weir.
The article is quite accurately titled; For Sochi the future is gay, whether Vladimir Putin likes it or not One certainty is there will be no boycott neither will the games be shifted
Got that?
Regardless of how daft and counter-productive these "demands" were in the first place, they were objectively not going to happen.
It would make a nice change if, just for once, one person calling for people to "do something" about homophobia in Russia had stopped for four seconds and thought things through.
Not that I'm suggesting for one moment that this "debate" has been dominated by a load of idiotic gay hysterics waving their pink pitchforks, you understand.*
It's encouraging that some sane and rational voices are starting to be heard in this thoroughly depressing episode - here's Alice Arnold;
Britain's homophobia needs to be tackled before we turn to Russia's.
Quite.
*Check out the usual avalanche of stupidity on
Huff Post Gay, and remind yourself why the LGBT movement's fucked.
They've even run an article that asks;
Imagine if they'd say that about race.
AARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!
Such sophisticated, original and radical political debate, HuffPo!
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