US Skater Adam Rippon Says He Won’t Try to Meet Mike Pence at Olympic Games Because VP Thinks Gay People Are ‘Sick’

‘It’s 2018 and Being an Openly Gay Man and an Athlete, That Is Part of the Face of America Now’ Rippon Says

U.S. skater Adam Rippon is not happy that Vice President Mike Pence has been chosen to lead the American delegation at this year’s Olympic Games in South Korea. Rippon, the first openly-gay athlete to qualify for Olympic winter games, took aim at Pence by accusing him of funding anti-gay “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, and blasted him for professing to be a Christian yet supporting President Donald Trump’s words and actions.

“You mean Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence that funded gay conversion therapy?” Rippon told USA Today Sports. He noted he does not want to meet Pence during the traditional ceremony before the start of the Games, and said he’s not going to try to meet the vice president.

“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,” Rippon told USA Today. “I wouldn’t go out of my way to meet somebody like that.”

He added that he doesn’t think the Trump administration “represents the values that I was taught growing up. Mike Pence doesn’t stand for anything that I really believe in.”

Rippon, who is 28, said he doesn’t think Pence “has a real concept of reality,” and needs to spend more time in church.

“To stand by some of the things that Donald Trump has said and for Mike Pence to say he’s a devout Christian man is completely contradictory. If he’s okay with what’s being said about people and Americans and foreigners and about different countries that are being called ‘shitholes,’ I think he should really go to church.”

Will Rippon get political while in South Korea?

“No,” he says. “I’m a U.S. athlete representing my country. I will continue to share my story, but I will participate in no form of protest. I’m representing myself and my country on the world stage. I have a lot of respect for this opportunity. What makes America great is that we’re all so different. It’s 2018 and being an openly gay man and an athlete, that is part of the face of America now.”

USA Today says Pence’s spokesperson in 2016 denied he supports anti-gay conversion therapy.  

“The widespread belief that Pence supports gay conversion therapy comes from a statement he made in 2000 on his congressional campaign website: ‘Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.’ While he didn’t explicitly mention gay conversion therapy, leaders in the LGBT community have said they believe that’s what Pence meant in light of his long-standing opposition to gay rights.”

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Hat tip: Towleroad

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