Tanya Domi is an adjunct professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Harriman Institute. She is currently writing a book on the emerging L.G.B.T. human rights movement in the western Balkans.

Russia’s crackdown on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people demanded a strong response from the West, including the possibility of an athletic boycott. Although the effectiveness appears to be mixed, boycotts over human rights abuses or geopolitical disputes have been carried out in some form in nearly every Olympics since the modern games resumed in 1896.

Western political leaders, including President Obama, are right to support the athletes but not the nationalistic glory of the opening ceremonies.

However, by the time Russia adopted a package of federal anti-gay laws in late 2013, the countdown to the Sochi Winter Olympics had already begun, undermining any realistic prospects for a successful general boycott of the Winter Games. Nonetheless, some Western political leaders, including President Obama, came together in a so-called political boycott, choosing to support the participating athletes but to stay home and effectively snub President Vladimir V. Putin at the opening ceremonies, in effect undercutting Putin’s pinnacle moment of nationalistic glory. The reasoning behind this line of thinking is sound and is endorsed by Human Rights Watch. Why target the athletes, who had nothing to do with creating Russia’s xenophobic attitudes toward gays?

President Obama went one step further, however, when he delivered an even stronger rebuke to Putin by announcing a U.S. delegation that includes three openly gay athletes: tennis champion Billie Jean King, Olympic hockey medalist Caitlin Cahow and figure skater Brian Boitano, who won the gold medal in the 1988 Olympics. This marks the first time since the 2000 Sydney Summer Games that a U.S. delegation has excluded any current senior elected officials or their family members. The U.S. joins the political boycott that includes France, Germany, Canada and the European Union.

Beyond official U.S. government actions, protest actions by the L.G.B.T. group Queer Nation in the United States effectively brought international attention to the plight of Russian gays by engaging in political theater last summer when they organized Russian Stoli “dumping actions” in San Francisco, New York City and London. Recently the group used Twitter to bring pressure on Olympic sponsor Coca-Cola who had tried to scrub the words “gay” from an interactive motto exercise with the public. These efforts have intensified public focus on the dire human rights situation for Russian gays.

Not withstanding efforts by governments and civil society advocates, the International Olympic Committee’s selection of Sochi as the host for the Winter Games has placed states and athletes who oppose Russia’s anti-gay laws in a moral quandary, especially for those who happen to be gay. The I.O.C. insists it opposes any form of discrimination under Principle 6 of its charter while at the same time threatening to strip medals or expel athletes from the Games for displaying any form of “political protest.” All of which leads one to ask, who, in the final analysis, is violating the spirit of the Olympic movement?

Meanwhile, what should ordinary, sports- and spectacle-loving Americans do? Given Russia’s adoption of draconian laws targeting the L,G.B.T. community, the best course of action is to tune out the Games and switch to another network or cable station.



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