Well, this is one way to get their attention. Reporter Jamie Kirchick, who is openly gay, appeared on “Russia Today,” the Kremlin-funded international network, ostensibly for the purposes of discussing the Bradley Manning verdict. Instead, he had other plans up his sleeve:
“Being here on a Kremlin-funded propaganda network, I’m going to wear my gay-pride suspenders and speak out against the horrific, anti-gay legislation that Vladimir Putin has signed into law,” Kirchick said as he pulled up rainbow-colored braces. He told the network’s reporters they should be “ashamed” of themselves for not covering the “horrific abuse” against the LGBT community in Russia.
The two clearly uncomfortable anchors tried to redirect the conversation back to Manning, but Kirchick, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute and a former reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, refused to budge. “You have 24 hours a day to lie about the United States and to ignore what’s happening in Russia. . . . I’m going to take my two minutes and tell people the truth,” Kirchick asserted.
“Russia Today” was apparently not amused, as Kirchick tweeted after the appearance that the network had instructed the taxi that drove him from the studio to “drop me off at the side of the highway.”
