Kseniya Ryzhova and Tatyana Firova kissed on the winners’ podium at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow during the World Athletics Championships in what appears to be a protest against their country’s new anti-gay law. The moment came after winning the gold medal in the women’s 4X400 meters relay competition.
Neither athlete has provided a comment about the moment caught on camera but the move has already generated tons of headlines for their display of homosexual propaganda. The two athletes weren’t the only ones to stir up controversy. Pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva spoke out against the promotion of gay rights and American runner, Nick Symonds, dedicated his silver medal win to his gay friends back home.
[Photo: Grigory Dukor/Reuters]
yaoming
Thank you, ladies. I hope you’ve started a trend and we’ll be seeing a lot more “protest” kissing on Olympic podiums this winter.
Brian
Puh-lease, this is not a protest kiss at all. It’s women saying “ha ha, we women are allowed to kiss in public but you men aren’t”. These women are exploiting a homophobic double standard which allows women to get away with things that men can’t.
yaoming
@Brian: By “a lot more” I meant “a lot of male”.
macmantoo
@yaoming: Give it a couple of hours and the IOC will announce a ban on Kissing at the Olympics
Christopher
No bread for them this month.
balehead
Gay separatists have no one to blame for these stupid laws but themselves…it’s ok for straights to show emotional closeness too!…
ouragannyc
@Christopher: Child, they are gonna get fired from the team and be sent to Siberia!
GeriHew
@Brian: Those ladies don’t appear to be kissing in a sexual manner.
Also, it is actually quite common in Russia for men to kiss and hug each other in a friendly manner as it is in France. It is not considered “Gay”. Somewhat ironically perhaps they are traditionally far less inhibited in this regard than men from English speaking, Anglo-Saxon heritage countries.
john
Very brave but it also very risky doing that in public and living in that homophobic country.I hope nothing bad will happen to them.We must all support them.
Will L
I’m sure everyone knew why they did it (that it wasn’t just a friendly kiss). This was brave to do in Russia right now.
yaoming
Just look at the expressions on the other women’s faces. They look pretty shocked to me. This was not a “friendly kiss” on the podium. I can’t wait to see the first men who try this.
ouragannyc
@Brian: It is a protest kiss. Look at the face of the two other girls at the extremities? They look schocked and uncomfortable.
Ridpathos
Finally glad to see actual Russians standing up to this law! Thanks ladies and much love!
1EqualityUSA
It’s so beautiful to stand up to hate in this way. Powerful.
519
Although, that shot in the article really looks like they are sharing a passionate kiss, take a look at this video: http://indavideo.hu/video/Rhyzova_y_Firova Unfortunately, it was really just four winners giving each other friendly kisses, and has nothing to do with the anti-gay laws.
GeriHew
@519: “Unfortunately” ?
519
I’m not a native speaker of English, so I might have made a mistake, but I meant that it would have been cool, if they did this to protest against the anti-gay law. But sadly for those, who thought that these women stood up for us, that’s not the case. It’s only suggested by the shot. And that’s IMHO unfortunate.
balehead
Gay separatism is the reason this law came into being in the first place….not everybody who is straight is secretly gay…..
miagoodguy
People should understand culture. Kissing on the mouth (between opposite sex and same sex) as a greeting or a show of affection between relatives/friends is VERY common in Europe and ESPECIALLY Eastern Europe.
Kangol
@john:
I’m with you. It’s brave. They and all Russian LGBTIQ people need our support.
We also should not condone Russia’s state-sponsored homophobia, and all non-Russian LGBTIQ people should strongly consider boycotting the Sochi Olympics and anything from the Russian government.
Cam
@balehead:
Balehead, you are a liar. This is a Russian issue, and Russian politics. Putin’s numbers in the polls were finally going down…way down, so he is doing what most politicians do, finding something to get people angry about. Here in the U.s. it used to be (And still is in some areas) minorities, Women, gays, and now Immigrants,
In Russia Putin is not getting support in the cities so he has gone out to the small towns and provinces and started a “Russia for Russians/Back to tradition” campaign. Attacking Minorities, he has reached out to the Russian Orthodox church etc.. and since he can’t attack Jews and they were the traditional group that the politicians there went after he has gone after gays.
But then again, why should you bother to actually know about a topic when you can just vomit out your little gay hating commentary?
GeriHew
@Kangol: This is not bravery. This is media manipulation.
Look at the video 519 already posted above:
“Although, that shot in the article really looks like they are sharing a passionate kiss, take a look at this video: http://indavideo.hu/video/Rhyzova_y_Firova Unfortunately, it was really just four winners giving each other friendly kisses, and has nothing to do with the anti-gay laws.”
There is no reason to suppose that these ladies are lgbtq or lgbtq supportive from their actions when this photograph was taken. I hope these ladies will take this silly furore over the picture in good humour. If they don’t, then I guess they may be somewhat homophobic themselves.