I'm An Openly Gay Gold Medalist and I Reject the Sochi Olympics Boycott

As an openly gay Olympic four-time gold medalist, you might expect that I would be in favor of joining prominent LGBT activists in calling for America to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympic games in Sochi, Russia.

After all, Russia’s recently passed laws cracking down on gays and lesbians violate everything I’ve spent my career fighting for; namely, love and respect for all people. It was hard enough to compete as a gay, closeted athlete in the United States. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like for gay athletes in Russia, knowing that if you were to come out, you would be considered a criminal and could lose everything you’ve worked your entire life to achieve.

READ: Russia's Anti-Gay Law, Spelled Out in Plain English

But while I’m strongly opposed to Vladimir Putin’s treatment of the LGBT community and will fight hard to reverse these heinous laws, I do not support a U.S. boycott of the Sochi Games.

Boycotting sends the wrong message and will only harm the hard-working athletes set to compete in the 2014 Olympics, not the Russian government itself. I know from personal experience. My first Olympics I won Silver at age 16, and then in 1980, at the height of my diving career, President Jimmy Carter opted to boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow as a method of protesting the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. The toll on fellow athletes and me was devastating. We had trained our entire lives for that one moment. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to continue my diving career and return to compete and win two gold medals in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (an Olympics the Eastern Block counties boycotted) and repeat two gold medals in 1988 Olympics in Seoul. But, other athletes were not so lucky. Some of those who missed the 1980 games never had another chance to shine. This boycott hurt the wrong people, taking a toll on prominent athletes more than the country it targeted.

I’m concerned the same would be true today. There are far too many athletes for whom the 2014 Sochi Olympics represents their only chance at success. A boycott will only hurt these athletes’ careers.

There’s a better way to speak out against President Putin and call out his bigotry for exactly what it is: speaking up for equal rights and educating people around the world about the persistence of homophobia. I’ve spent my post-diving career doing just this. I’ve promoted HIV/AIDS awareness, defended the civil liberties of the LGBT community, and taken a stand against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Rather than boycott, I, along with several amazing organizations including Athlete Ally and All Out, plan to use the Sochi Games as a teachable moment for the world.

Along with other athletes, I will continue to speak up about these disgusting laws which discriminate against gays and lesbians. I’ve signed this petition aimed directly at the International Olympic Committee, urging the IOC to condemn Russia’s anti-gay laws before the Olympics.

As athletes, the most valuable thing we can do is send a strong, unified message to Russia and its president that we will not stand for this cruel and repressive treatment. We will not stop until gay people in Russia are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Athlete Ally has teamed up with All Out to launch a petition calling on world leaders to speak out against Russia's anti-gay laws. 335,000 people have already signed on. Find out more here.

Athlete Ally is a non profit organization dedicated to challenging homophobia and transphobia in sports. Follow them on Twitter: @athleteally, on Facebook, & visit: www.athleteally.org

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Not Even Promising 50 Years Of Secrecy Can Get Congress to Cooperate

In a last ditch effort for tax reform legislation, the top two members of the Senate Finance Committee, Democratic Chairman Max Baucus and Republican Orrin Hatch, assured their fellow senators that any suggestions offered would be kept secret for 50 years. Baucus and Hatch have realized, apparently, that the only way to get anything done in Congress in its current climate of gridlock and finger pointing is to promise mum’s the word for five decades. Yes, this is an utter failure of Congress and its ability to govern, but it is also a failure of a media that exists to mediate the relationship between the government and the public, yet refuses to hold elected leaders accountable and seems content to facilitate this sort of non-governance.

The state of affairs in Congress is bleak when senators agree to do their job only if everyone else promises not to tell. An aide for the Senate Finance Committee described the secrecy measures proposed by Baucus and Hatch as "standard operating procedure for sensitive materials." Since when is legislative debate on tax reform considered sensitive material? Why are senators only willing to offer suggestions for reform if their names remain unattributed? The only explanation is that a major divide exists between what these senators truly believe and what they're willing to cop to in public. Otherwise there would be no need for 50 years of secrecy. Yet any public suggestion for tax reform is seen as a concession to the other side — a depressing reality encouraged by a media intent on presenting every issue as a contest.

Framing every story as who's winning versus who's losing rather than presenting an accurate analysis of policy and legislation creates a political environment where the players are afraid — scared into silence, in fact — to do anything that might resemble working with the other team. Ezra Klein for the Washington Post gets to the heart of the matter: "If the opposition party doesn't want to cut a deal, there won't be a deal. And if all coverage of policy is colored by that core political decision, then there'll never be real pressure on them to make a deal, either."

It's a vicious cycle. Republicans don't want any successful legislation to come out of the senate while under a Democratic majority, so they're unwilling to compromise. An unwillingness to compromise means nothing gets done, which leaves the media little to cover but the very gridlock that halts the political process, which in turn motivates Republicans to continue to abstain from governing. Republicans aren't necessarily solely to blame here, as Democrats would likely do the same if the tables were turned, but the fact of the matter is nothing is getting done and the media only seems to want to cover policy in the context of how likely it is to pass (and everything, it seems, is unlikely).

Take, for example, the new push for tax reform after President Barack Obama's recent economy-focused speeches. A headline of a story in The Washington Post tags on the line that Obama's proposals were "quickly rejected by GOP." The New York Times describes Baucus and Hatch’s plan for tax reform as a "Lonely Bipartisan Push," suggesting that anything involving a negotiation between the two parties is dead on arrival.

If the senate discussion on tax reform featured named senators making public suggestions, perhaps there would be a productive analysis of legislation for the media to cover. Instead, however, we have senators giving anonymous tips that will be put on ice for 50 years and a media presenting the issue as a non-starter, leaving the public little chance to influence the governance that is, supposedly, for them and by them. All we're left with is failed coverage of a failed government.

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Lady Gaga's 'Burqa' is Supposed to Empower Muslim Women, But Does the Opposite

Just like it happened before the release of many of her other albums, one of the songs off Lady Gaga's upcoming album ARTPOP was leaked on Monday. The song, titled “Burqa/Aura,” is already taking the internet by storm and scores of fans are commenting on what appears to be a demo of the song. As catchy as it might be, the lyrics of the song present troubling portrayals of Muslim women. The recurring, sexualized portrayals of women who wear the burqa, niqab, hijab, or any covering for that matter reduce the image of Muslim women to mystifying, erotic shells of people whose garb entices others to “take a peek.” Such portraits not only come off as incredibly offensive, they perpetuate an all-too-common, orientalist image of Muslim women being voiceless and seen purely as an item to be used for sex.

The lyrics at first listen come off as encouraging, even empowering to women with lines such as, “I’m not a wandering slave, I’m a woman of choice … My veil is protection for the gorgeousness of my face.” Such lines echo what many Muslim women say are their reasons for wearing the hijab, niqab, or burqa. But following this, the song's lyrics quickly take a turn for the cringe-worthy. The chorus goes: “Do you want to see me naked, lover? Do you want to peek underneath the cover? Do you want to see the girl who lives behind the aura? ... Do you wanna touch me? Let’s make love.”

These lines cast women who wear the veil as far-removed figures from another world. The heavily erotic images ultimately dehumanize and degrade burqa-wearing women and turn them into animalistic beings. In a society that automatically associates the burqa with Muslim women and Middle Eastern culture, a song like this only adds onto the monolithic image of the Muslim woman being quiet, sheltered, and owned by a man.

Even in at the art associated with this song that came out earlier this year, Lady Gaga is shown wearing a hot-pink and translucent burqa, with platform shoes and the shape of her body visible through the garment. Of course Lady Gaga is well known for her lavish, colorful, and outlandish wardrobe, but appropriating the burqa in such a way to turn it into an erotic, revealing garment is outright offensive. We are already seeing ignorant reactions from many fans of the song who have taken to wearing a burqa (in many cases actually a niqab, for those who bother to distinguish between them) with no sensitivity towards women who wear one out of observance and choice.

From both a feminist and a Muslim perspective these lyrics are troublesome. This kind of erotic portrayal of women wearing the burqa is part of what makes Islamophobia a pressing, rampant issue in the Western world. It’s images like this that make us view these women as distant, otherworldly figures. It’s images like this that strip Muslim women of any individual identity and reduce them into hypersexualized beings lacking tangible, human qualities. For a pop star to knowingly portray Muslim women who cover in such a way isn't artistic. It's irresponsible.

Muslim women are individuals. They do not belong to a monolithic group. They do not all cover in the same way. Many don’t even cover at all. They have varying sexualities, and opinions on modesty. The statement Lady Gaga is making here not only shows her ignorance of this fact, but also demonstrates the pressing need for us to move on from such simplistic and damaging views of Muslim women.

Listen to the demo here.

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Why I'm Proud to Be a Part Of Know Your IX

Just this week, Know Your IX, a fantastic new anti-sexual-violence campaign, was launched into the Great Wide World of the Interwebs. Know Your IX seeks to educate college students across the United States about their rights under Title IX, a law that prohibits universities and colleges from gender-based discrimination (it’s more than just sports, y’all). Know Your IX has created a digital repository for related information. In addition to providing plainly worded summaries of federal laws, Know Your IX empowers college students by sharing survivor-activists’ advice, from the best practices for campus change, to weighing the pros and cons of taking legal action, to dealing with the myriad issues that confront survivor-activists.

A Know Your IX contributor myself, I was humbled to click through and read the brilliant pieces written by other Know Your IX-ers. And I have been thrilled to see key constituents of the anti-sexual violence movement greet Know Your IX with open and welcoming arms. However, my excitement for this campaign extends well beyond my own involvement. Know Your IX marks an innovative step in the fight to eradicate rape on America’s college campus, as it features crowd-sourced testimony from the very people who are at the front lines of this movement. The result? A campaign that empowers change-making millennial writers and readers across the country.

Image courtesy Know Your IX.

As Know Your IX frequently reminds its readers, most of the site's contributors are not lawyers or experts. Rather than a liability, I find the student survivor-activists' perspectives to be the campaign’s greatest strength. One of Know Your IX's codirectors, Alexandra Brodsky, told me that, “there are a lot of organizations with far greater legal and political expertise than we have, but what Know Your IX has to offer is that this collective is able to address common issues that are often overlooked by those who aren't on the ground.” This direct perspective results in articles about how to build support networks, deal with school retaliation, and cope with activist burnout and self care, concerns that might not be obvious to someone who lacks first-hand experience. While organizations like the National Women’s Law Center and the ACLU feature Title IX resources, Know Your IX can address questions about the day-to-day experience of survivor-activist life.

In line with its grassroots philosophy, Know Your IX seeks to confront the stereotypes of a, "'default' survivor who is a white, straight, able-bodied, legally documented, wealthy cis woman.” Know Your IX includes articles about how to deal with prejudice as a male survivor, how to handle homophobia, resources that address sexual violence's intersection with immigration status, and advice on contending with administrative and intramovement racism. The site also provides advice on how Title IX can protect trans* students. Know Your IX has successfully provided a resource for all college students. Encouraging widespread, collaborative action by people with diverse gender identities and expressions, sexualities, classes, races, and nationalities is one of the strongest strategies in the campaign to abolish sexual violence. After all, as the Department of Education states “anyone who believes there has been an act of discrimination on the basis of sex against any person or group in a program or activity that receives [Department of Education] financial assistance may file a complaint.”

Image courtesy Know Your IX.

Excitingly, Know Your IX bridges a gap between digital resources and real-world activism. Its web presence acknowledges the importance of online networks in the current movement. According to Brodsky, “We always conceived of the campaign as an online project, in large part because that's where almost all of us connected in the first place. As a social media campaign and website, Know Your IX can reach people beyond our limited set of campuses and quickly respond to visitors' feedback.”

Interested in joining the cause? Sign up here to become a member of the Know Your IX Action Team andWhy I'm Proud to Be a Part Of Know Your IX help spread the word. In addition to spreading its message via social media, Know Your IX encourages survivor-activists to place ads in their campus papers or to poster their campus with Title IX fact sheets. By providing guides on how to engage with activism beyond sharing or tweeting, Know Your IX encourages visitors to transform their own campuses and communities. Know Your IX’s media awareness also extends to advice on how to harness the media for the movement, and advice on avoiding being misrepresented in the media.

Image courtesy Know Your IX.

Know Your IX is taking a new step toward empowering survivor-activists through educating students on their federal civil right to keep campuses free of sexual violence, and giving students tested strategies with which to implement change. Students are reaching out to other students, and building a resource that is well-researched, decidedly relevant, and in step with current trends in digital activism. But don’t just take my word for it. Learn to know your IX here.

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Wait Until You Read How Republicans Just Wasted Everyone's Good Time

The public's approval rating of Congress hovers in the mid-teens, and it's not hard to see why, especially when the GOP-controlled House seems insistent on wasting time with ridiculous bills that are purely symbolic rather than effective. It's no secret that the House has tried to repeal Obamacare over 40 times, which is a travesty when there are so many issues in this country that aren't getting anywhere near the amount of time, effort, and resources they deserve, but the waste doesn't stop there.

Last Wednesday, the House discussed (and eventually shelved) a bill related to transportation and housing funding, which sounds perfectly legitimate. However, the bill also contained a provision to defund ACORN, the anti-poverty group.

If the last time you heard about ACORN seems like it was years ago, that's because the group is no longer in existence. After a vicious but false video by conservative James O'Keefe in 2009 suggested that ACORN provided advice on tax avoidance for prostitution and child smuggling, the group fell into infamy, regardless of the fact that several state attorney generals and the Governmental Accountability Office cleared them of all charges. Further funding bans by the GOP caused the group to officially disband in 2010.

And yet, in the past three years, the GOP has made not one, not two, but 13 separate attempts to shut down the defunct group.

That's 13 separate times that a completely unnecessary provision has been tacked onto a bill. Thirteen separate times that a useless addendum has taken up precious congressional minutes and dialogue. Thirteen times that other issues, like the persistence of educational inequality in America or the inability to pass a comprehensive federal budget or even a legitimate Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act, have not been discussed.

It seems that the new tactic in the House is not to actually get things done by passing legislation (the rate of "congressional productivity" is actually at an all-time low) but to merely present symbolic legislation to indicate an ideological stance. Prove you're a "real" Republican by continuously proposing a repeal to Obamacare, no matter how many times it hasn't passed before or how ineffective it actually is. Keep those RINO charges at bay by proposing reduced funding for ACORN, a notion that everyone can get behind even though it means literally nothing.

This kind of governing, if it can even be called that, is just political posturing and rhetoric. Its only purpose is to bolster the ideological credentials of those proposing and supporting it, and what's worse, it creates absolutely no change. When political ideology, and not results or leadership, are billed as top priority, the people of America are the ones that lose.

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Them's Fightin' Words: The Case For Bringing Back the Duel

It is time to bring back dueling. Really. Dueling has admittedly never been popular in America. Even the Founders had difficulty finding states where it was legal. And in America's most famous duel, a great New Yorker and the man on the $10 bill was killed with a bullet to the chest.

In fact, people today see dueling as a problem that has been overcome by the Conquering Empire of Light and Reason, rather than a solution to many of the problems that we face on a daily basis. But dueling has much to offer. For one thing, it would reintroduce honor to public grievances. The Legal-Industrial Complex has benefited in recent years from the millions of lawsuits that get filed by someone who was allergic to the salsa at the football party. In fact, the legal industry has expanded so much that many lawyers have given up on waiting for cases, and started looking for them.

Many grievances are legitimate, but legalizing dueling would help ensure that such issues are not taken lightly. It might also help schools that wanted to secure funding for marksmanship or fencing teams, now that they could claim that they were just preparing students for later life.

While legalizing dueling would solve many problems, it might create a few. Some people would become magnets for duels and the worst scoundrels would also be the best shots. Donald Trump and Alex Rodriguez would probably be fairly good duelers by now, unless either one had been killed long ago. Ambulance-chasing lawyers would go away, only to be replaced by hearse-leading seconds.

But the best argument in favor of dueling is not the practical ends that it would serve, but rather its consistency with liberal principles. Perhaps the government should be allowed to protect individuals from themselves in some circumstances — e.g. when they are insane and therefore divided against themselves, or when they are bound to certain self-destructive addictions. But the government has no right to protect two individuals of completely sound mind from resolving their conflict on their own, as long as the terms are agreed upon.

One of the things that so impressed the French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville about the American experiment was that Americans liked to govern at the local level, or according to the least common denominator. Americans resolved their problems through improvised civic associations which benefited from their immediate knowledge and incentive to do the job the right way. What, then, could be more true to the this experiment than resolving one's grievances with nothing other than oneself, one's adversary, and two friends to serve as cornermen?

Some would no doubt argue that these issues could be addressed through conflict-resolution professionals who could negotiate some kind of monetary settlement without the government. The problem is, whenever those in conflict do not play for keeps, no resolution will satisfy them as long as they believe they could have gotten more. The Winklevosses are walking proof of this. Once dueling is legalized, individuals will have two options for satisfaction. One is the state's justice, the other is the point of a sword and barrel of a gun. The first might be safer, but the second is much less prejudiced.

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3 New Yorkers Who Are Asking Forgiveness — And Doing It Wrong

Public requests for forgiveness have been on parade lately, given the slew of sex scandals involving public officials (like Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, and Bob Filner) and performance-enhancing-drug (PED) scandals involving professional athletes (like Alex Rodriguez and a host of other recently suspended MLB players).

But as praiseworthy and important a concept as forgiveness is, there's always the danger that it's being applied in a self-serving manner.

Take a quick look at what forgiveness is supposed to be about. When one person harms another, we have a perpetrator and a victim. Forgiveness is the process by which the perpetrator fixes that harm. It involves admitting what they've done and apologizing for it as well as compensating for the damage and changing their behavior so they don't repeat the mistake in the future.

How this process of forgiveness applies to a given situation will vary, because there are lots of ways that people can harm and mistreat each other. If I break your window or scratch your arm, there's a dollar amount we can put on compensation, or an obvious place to put the bandage. But, when we betray one another's trust — by lying or cheating, as Weiner and A-Rod have done — the harm done is intangible. It's real, but it's not the sort of thing a check or a bandage is going to fix. Credibility and trust is very easy to break, but very hard to rebuild.

Now, Weiner and A-Rod et al. have made a show — often, a very big, public show — of asking for forgiveness. But even as they're seeking forgiveness, they insist on holding onto the public positions in which they misbehaved.

A-Rod, along with many other MLB players found to have used steroids, wants to keep playing Major League Baseball. Sure, he lied and fooled fans into thinking that his achievements were the result of skill and talent. But he doesn't think he should have to step down from being a major league player in order to remedy that harm. No, he seems to think that the appropriate place for him to earn forgiveness is on the ball field where he cheated.

Meanwhile, Weiner and Spitzer may have resigned from the House of Representatives and the New York governor's mansion, respectively, after their sex scandals came to light. But they still think that they deserve a place in public office, now running for mayor and comptroller (respectively) of New York City. It's not like they've done anything to earn our trust back — rather, they think that holding public office is the place for them to do that. And, of course, Filner doesn't think he needs to step down at all, as he apparently believes that San Diego City Hall is the best place for him to deal with sexual harassment allegations from his time in the House of Representatives.

I'm not saying that you should have to resign your position in order to earn forgiveness for mistakes you've made while holding that position. In marriages, for instance, spouses often make amends for mistakes they've made as spouses without getting divorced. The same goes for mistakes made between parents and children.

But even in those cases, there is something of a probationary period, or at least some sort of trial separation, right? And it's not like these guys don't have other forums available to them.

Weiner could, as a private citizen, speak out about the dangers of sexting and the importance of public officials answering questions honestly and immediately. Instead, he's running for mayor even as we find he's still hiding details about other illicit online encounters. He displays little shame for his brazen lies from 2011 (e.g., saying that the scandalous photos might be "the point of Al-Qaeda’s sword").

Spitzer could, as a private citizen, talk about the evils of prostitution and work to keep people from viewing it as their only economic option. And yet he's running for NYC comptroller, serving no time after breaking a law that he himself signed into effect, a law which others have done jail time for breaking. And he had to be prodded into admitting that his scandal involved lying about illegal activity, not "personal" affairs. "Politicians dissemble all the time" he says.

A-Rod could, as a former professional athlete, talk to kids and prospective athletes about the dangers of using steroids and PEDs, warning them about the risk to their health and their integrity. But instead he's trying to add to his impressive batting statistics, numbers that he accomplished with some unspecified amount of chemical assistance.

There are lots of paths to redemption, because there are usually many ways and forums for people to earn back our respect and undo (or outweigh) they harm they've done. It only takes some dedication and imagination to stumble on them.

It's disappointing that Weiner, Spitzer, A-Rod and others have chosen a path that involves them getting to do exactly what they want to do anyway.

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