From Sochi with not so much love!

Well, as the dark, wet evening once again surrounds London and makes our commute up to Birmingham that little bit more interesting, I thought I would put together a quick post to acknowledge the start of the Sochi Winter Olympics 2014.

As you may recall, Laura and I were in Russia not that long ago, in fact we stood in the centre of the Red Square and took kissing photos - imagine! We knew when we visited Russia that they weren't exactly a rainbow toting nation but they didn't really seem an overly friendly nation at all. Our News Years Eve involved being ushered through rows of gun wielding Russian soldiers and if you stepped out of line visiting Lenin's tomb you were yelled at. All in all the vodka was the best we've ever had, the buildings in the centre of Moscow were beautiful but the Russians weren't ready to make new friends with us!

So to the Olympics, all we hope is that the violence shown to LGBT folks over there doesn't continue and that Putin and his nasty cronies realise the joy in things that are a little bit gay - if not flying out of the closest in a rainbow flag or, you know, prancing around on ice-skates - you have to be good to prance remember otherwise it's just falling on ice!

Come on Putin, we're not all bad...

I mean how can you really hate gay people! I don't say that as a gay person, I say that as a human being who knows above all that being gay isn't about who you sleep with it's about who you love and when did loving someone ever cause society harm?! Love is love after all! And everyone will need that in the arctic cold Russian winter after a day slipping on snow and ice.

If there is a positive outcome to the homophobic Russians hosting the Winter Olympics, it's that some people, companies and businesses are pretty ready to come out, so to speak, and show their support to the LBGT community. Kudos goes to Channel 4 especially for showing this:

Not that we are all flaming gay bears ready to head up gay mountain, but it does sound fun!

Then there's Google- there is always good ole' Google:

Germany dressed to impress (kinda)

I want to know where Greece got these gloves!

And the gay Dutch snowboarder was modeling a wonderful Unicorn and rainbow glove:

Thanks for highlighting gaystarnews.com 

Canada even created this showing the games have always been a little bit gay:

The Guardian paper in the UK also added their support:

And for those brands who are yet to show support some people took matters into their own hands, Queer Nation put this together for Coca-Cola:

Let's hope that the LBGT community can be left alone to enjoy the games

"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." - Olympic Charter

and the UK win a few medals - Laura and I do love the Winter Olympics after all!