Olympic gold medalist Peter Vidmar, who last week was named chef de mission for the 2012 U.S. Olympic team, abruptly resigned Friday after a firestorm of negative attention in the media and inside the U.S. Olympic Committee due to his 2008 actions against gay marriage.
As first reported in the Chicago Tribune [editor's note: Outsports tipped off by a reader, was first to report this, and was quoted by the Chicago Tribune], Vidmar participated in two anti-gay marriage demonstrations and donated $2,000 for the successful 2008 Proposition 8 ballot initiative in California defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The proposition overturned a California Supreme Court ruling that permitted same-sex marriage.
"Olympic gold medalist joins Rancho Prop 8 demonstration," said The Orange County Register on Oct. 30, 2008, in which it quoted Vidmar as saying, "It's good for our society to have a traditional definition of marriage."
Vidmar said his opposition to same-sex marriage comes from his religious beliefs as a Mormon.
"The Church wanted to take a stand on the issue, and they invited their members to take a stand," he told the Tribune. "I chose to be involved."
In U.S. Olympic circles, there was concern that Vidmar wasn't just expressing his personal opinions on a controversial issue, but that he had moved into an activist role on an issue involving civil rights.
When the Tribune story broke, reaction was nearly immediate — and almost entirely negative — within the USOC. Aimee Mullins, the former president of the Women's Sports Foundation and chef de mission for the 2012 U.S. Paralympic Games team, said she was "concerned and deeply saddened" about Vidmar's past actions.
"The Olympic movement is about promoting equity for all," she said.
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1 comment:
...and another homophob from SEE region (this time not Croatian but Slovenian origin)
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