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Russian Olympian Yelena Isinbayeva Supports Anti-Gay Hate

Russian Olympian Yelena Isinbayeva Supports Anti-Gay Hate

Ayelenar

Pole vaulter says her country is for 'normal people.'

Yelena Isinbayeva, a Russian pole vaulter who has won two Olympic gold medals, came out swinging in favor of her country's strident and sweeping anti-gay laws.

Said Isinbayeva, "If we allow to promote and do all this stuff on the street, we are afraid about our nation because we consider ourselves like normal, standard people."

"We just live with boys with woman, woman with boys. Everything must be fine. It comes from history. We never had any problems, these problems in Russia, and we don't want to have any in the future." said Isinbayeva, who this weekend won big at the World Athletics Championships, the same event at which Nick Symmonds denounced Russian laws against pro-gay speech. Obviously Isinbayeva disagrees, and Symmonds is astonished.

"It blows my mind that a young, well-travelled, well-educated woman would be so behind the times. She said 'normal, standard people' in Russia? Guess what - a lot of these people with Russian citizenship are normal, standard homosexuals. They deserve rights too," Symmonds said, according to The Independent.

Meanwhile, Swedish athletes Emma Green Tregaro Moa Hjelmer showed their LGBT solidarity by painting rainbow flags onto their nails during the WAC event in Moscow.

(Images via Wikipedia.)

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