Rainbow Flags Could Get Olympic Athletes Disqualified

From the New Civil Rights Movement: 

...That beautify fantasy, above, is the beginning of New York Times‘ opinion writer Frank Bruni‘s Monday column, “Striking Olympic Gold.” What Bruni leaves out is that that act of political defiance would disqualify each participating Olympic athlete from the Games. In short, they would each be sent home. 

And the International Olympic Committee (IOC) could very well be sending home a great many Olympic athletes from the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia six months from now, if any of them show support for LGBT civil rights. While they IOC has not made a public statement, their 103-page charter (published below) is very specific:

No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.

The bylaws clarify this rule:

No form of publicity or propaganda, commercial or otherwise, may appear on persons, on sportswear, accessories or, more generally, on any article of clothing or equipment whatsoever worn or used by the athletes or other participants in the Olympic Games, except for the identification – as defined in paragraph 8 below – of the manufacturer of the article or equipment concerned, provided that such identification shall not be marked conspicuously for advertising purposes.

So, if any Olympic athlete pulls out a gay flag, as the Times’s Frank Bruni suggested, or of they wear the tiniest rainbow pin on their uniform, they could be disqualified from the Games and sent home.