Boycotting the Olympics

If you read the title, you can pretty well guess what this article is about. I feel horrible saying it, but I am truly boycotting the Olympics this year. The Olympics as a whole is my favorite sporting event - my Super Bowl, if you will - but as much as I love to watch and root for Team USA, I just cannot bring myself to watch it knowing what is happening to the LGBT community in Russia.

I've been a fan of the Olympics for as long as I can remember. And the Winter Olympics were always a personal favorite over the Summer games. I cried when Dan Jansen won the gold in his final race in 1994. I was obsessed with Bonnie Blair, Picabo Street, Brian Boitano, and Apolo Ono. I collected pins, magazines, trading cards anything related to them. And now, decades later, who would have thought I'd be boycotting the same games that I loved so much?

I'm not a political person or activist by any stretch of the definition. I'm also not one to watch the news regularly - it's just so depressing. In fact, I'm so "un-worldly" that I didn't even realize how bad things were for gays in Russia until I read the article about Wentworth Miller coming out in a letter declining his invitation to the St. Petersburg Film Festival. It was about this time I also started to read about the Russian anti-gay laws and the Sochi games and decided to boycott the Olympics.

I know that one person refusing to watch probably won't make an impact, but it was the best thing that I could think of to show my support to the gay community, especially in Russia. That is until this past Thursday. It was Hannah Hart (yes the My Drunk Kitchen YouTuber) that alerted me to two other ways that I could help. Both the Human Rights Campaign and It Gets Better Project are offering ways that you can send your support to LGBT's of Russia (and flip the proverbial finger at their antiquated notions of love and justice). I would really appreciate anyone who reads this article to send out a positive message on the IGBP page or Tweet your message of support via the HRC.

The entire ordeal even inspired me to make a Motivate Me Monday plaque that would hopefully show at least one person out there that they are not alone.