Today
Mike Pence Tangles With Olympian Adam Rippon Over Gay Rights Record
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/s...-olympics.html
The 2018 Winter Olympics officially opened on Friday but the first bit of drama has already boiled over: a three-way dispute between Adam Rippon, the first openly gay American man to qualify to compete in the Winter Games; Mike Pence, the conservative vice president and longtime opponent of gay rights; and the newspaper USA Today.
As controversies go, this one seems to have it all. Mr. Rippon, a charismatic 28-year-old figure skater, newly minted gay icon and social media darling, criticized Mr. Pence for his opposition to gay rights and long-rumored support of conversion therapy, a discredited practice that proponents claim can make gay people straight.
Mr. Rippon also declined an invitation to meet with Mr. Pence before the Games, his agent said.
Mr. Pence and his spokespeople have pushed back, arguing that he does not support conversion therapy, which has been discredited by the medical community and condemned by rights groups.
And the snub from Mr. Rippon? They say it never happened because they never asked him to meet in the first place.
How the controversy began
The dispute began on Jan. 17, when Mr. Rippon criticized the White Housedecision to give Mr. Pence the ceremonial role of leading the United States delegation to the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“You mean Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence that funded gay conversion therapy?” Mr. Rippon said to USA Today.
“I’m not buying it.”
He said he would prefer not to meet Mr. Pence at the informal gathering of American athletes and the official delegation held before the Games.
“If it were before my event, I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they aren’t a friend of a gay person but that they think that they’re sick,” Mr. Rippon told the newspaper.
An invitation and a rejection
But two weeks later, things escalated.
On Wednesday, USA Today reported that Mr. Pence’s office was so concerned about Mr. Rippon’s criticism that it had taken the unusual step of asking the United States Olympic Committee to arrange “a conversation between the two.”
Mr. Rippon, true to his word, would not meet with the vice president, the paper reported.
That seemed to be too much for Mr. Pence.
On Thursday, he lashed out at the paper, tweeting that the report was “fake news” and that the journalist who had written it was bent on dividing Americans. But he was careful not to criticize Mr. Rippon.
Adam Rippon practiced at Gangneung Ice Arena in Gangneung, South Korea, on Wednesday.