If The Olympics Were Like Silicon Valley
A parable
Today, Vladimir Putin announced that homosexuals would not only be banned from the Olympics, but anyone actively supporting or promoting the rights of homosexuals would be arrested.
Reaction from the American Olympic athletes was tepid.
“I don’t see the problem,” one athlete said. “Gays just aren’t good at sports the way us straight people are.”
His teammate chimed in, “I mean, look at all the special things gay people get already! World AIDS day, movies and plays about their suffering. Why don’t we have those about straight people? “
The spokesperson for the athletes, Peter Keebler, took more than two weeks to respond to the announcement, following up with a carefully worded post that was edited by about 30 gay people.
“Some have accused me of being homophobic. To anyone who knows me that would seem a pretty implausible claim. It’s hard to argue I’m biased against homosexuals when I have a homosexual sitting right next to me here at work. In fact, at least 6% of our atheletes are openly gay. That’s up from zero just a few years ago. And we’re 3x the average of the NBA.”
Others were more direct.
“It’s no big deal,” noted one athlete on “Athlete News,” the online athlete forum. “It’s just one Olympics. They can come back in four years.”
“Really? We should give up our chance to compete just because a few gays can’t come?” noted one male figure skater, whose online name was bigguns34.
“Well, if the left wing propaganda machine wouldn’t keep pushing this pro gay agenda, it wouldn’t matter at all,” a poster named speedfreak72 wrote.
Apart from a few angry tweets and some opinion posts, it didn’t seem the American athletes had any real concern at all. Several homosexual athletes on the forum tried to explain or suggest that discrimination could harm the value of the competition.
“Who really cares?” replied another athlete. “Athletics is boring, hard work. Why would gays want to do that anyway when they could do RuPaul’s Drag Race, or be a hairdresser?”
George Doofus, the founder of the Straight Athletes’ Rights group SACF (Straight Athletes Come First) advised that the rights of straight athletes were being trampled by all the attention being paid to homosexuals.
“Sports is the last bastion of the meritocracy! Let’s not dilute it by encouraging the participation of a group of people who wouldn’t like it anyway,” he wrote. The post received hundreds of “upvotes,” the currency of approval on Athlete News.
With so many countries pulling out of Russia in support of gay rights, it looks like the Americans are poised to win more gold medals than ever this year.
“USA! USA! USA!”
