Boston, September 10, 2013
The Massachusetts-based family group MassResistance has released an audio recording of a speaker alluding to the wide-ranging plan during the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA)'s 2013 convention, “Boston: Uncommon,” last month.
The three-week-long campaign would include such antics as athletes displaying LGBT pride symbols that had been smuggled into the country by foreign policy officials from Western nations.
“We've spoken with the Canadian and U.S. hockey teams. We're going to be doing work with both of those teams,” Patrick Burke, the co-founder of the You Can Play Project, said in an unannounced presentation during a panel on homosexuals in sports on August 24.
“The Russians have said they'll confiscate rainbow flags if you try and bring them in your regular luggage. They've said they'll confiscate pins,” he said.
“We are talking about utilizing diplomatic channels to get” homosexual propaganda material “into the country,” he told attendees at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.
Burke said he consulted a friend who “basically runs” the Russian Kontinental Hockey League and “knows every Russian billionaire out there” about building a “pride house” in the village of Sochi but decided against it for security reasons.
The actions are intended to flout Russia's prohibition on gay propaganda “intended to form in a minor a nontraditional sexual foundation.” President Vladimir Putin signed the measure, which passed the Duma by a unanimous 436-0 vote, in June. Foreigners who break the law could be fined the equivalent of $156 (U.S.) and held in jail 15 days before being deported.
But Burke speculated that Russian authorities will not enforce the law's maximum penalties.
“I don't think you're going to see fines. I don't think you're going to see arrests,” Burke said. “I think you're going to see, someone waves a rainbow flag on the podium; you go right from the podium to an airplane. You get sent home.”
“I think the athletes are going to be safe,” he said. His biggest fear envisioned “non-governmental groups taking matters into their own hands.”
Burke told the journalists the most “frustrating part” of the plan “is we can't talk about that publicly, because if you talk about it publicly, the Russians don't let you in the country.”
Although the homosexual confab was attended, and underwritten, by the world's elite media, no one in attendance has reported the incident.
NLGJA's conference was sponsored by CNN, ESPN, the Gannett newspaper chain, Comcast/NBC Universal, CBS, Google, and Bloomberg News.
Its guest speaker was Jill Abramson, executive editor of the New York Times.
“Here at a journalism conference someone gives a presentation on how they're planning on disrupting the Olympics, and it's not news,” Brian Camenker, director of MassResistance, told LifeSiteNews.com. “CBS News was there, CNN was there, Fox News, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Time-Warner, National Public Radio – all of these people were there, and it's not news.”
“It's an international incident, and no one seemed to think” it is newsworthy, he said in disbelief. “There's been a lag time for somebody to say something on this, and nobody seemed interested in reporting this.”
“You're the first people who have called on this,” Camenker told LifeSiteNews.
A reporter asked Putin about a hypothetical scenario during a press conference the Russian leader held with the Associated Press last week. “A question some have asked is: What if an athlete waves a rainbow flag? Would he or she punished or somehow discriminated against?” the Global Postreported.
"I can assure you that during the Olympics or any other major sports events, Russia will strictly stick to the Olympic principles which forbid any kind of discrimination of people on any basis," Putin said, while not explicitly saying the law would be suspended. “There will be no negative consequences, I hope.”
Russian officials have made inconsistent public statements about whether the law will be enforced during the games.
Camenker said the media's silence points to the wider issue of bias, even collusion, when one of the parties holds a liberal viewpoint.
“Patrick Burke felt that the audience was going to keep a secret on this, or else he wouldn't have” talked about it, he told LifeSiteNews. “He clearly said we're keeping this a secret.”
“I think this is indicative of the larger problem we have in the media: They will cover up an enormous amount of stuff,” he said. “We've seen all the stuff they won't report on Barack Obama. They wouldn't talk about” Kermit Gosnell.
The media's attendance and sponsorship, he worried, created a “conflict of interest” that skewed reporters' coverage of issues like gay “marriage.”
Tax documents show the media are invested in NLGJA's message, literally and figuratively. The group's 990 tax form for 2011 shows NBC Universal Media donated $10,000, as did Bloomberg LP. Turner Broadcasting Services donated $5,000.
Its featured corporate sponsors that year included Disney Worldwide Services and the Sara Lee Corporation. Each gave $5,000.
The focus on highlighting homosexual concerns also crowds out legitimate human rights abuses, Camenker said.
“It's particularly offensive to me, watching the news, given the horrible things that are happening to Christians and Christian churches in places like Egypt right now, where there really is this Nazi-like kind of stuff going on right now,” he said. “The Left just kind of brushes it aside, if you want to talk about real human rights problems.”
If Burke is successful in violating the Russian law, he will have assistance from high places. President Obama met with two homosexual activist leaders in St. Petersburg during the G20 Summit last Friday. He had told Jay Leno the law violates "basic morality."
LifeSiteNews.com
By Ben Johnson
