Mike Pence Tangles With Olympian Adam Rippon Over Gay Rights Record

February 9, 2018 admin Politics 0

He said he would prefer not to meet Mr. Pence at the informal gathering of American athletes and the official delegation held before the Games.

“If it were before my event, I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they aren’t a friend of a gay person but that they think that they’re sick,” Mr. Rippon told the newspaper.

Mr. Pence has been dogged by claims that he supports conversion therapy since his 2000 campaign for Congress. In a paragraph about H.I.V./AIDS, his campaign website said federal funding should go to “institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” That was widely interpreted as signaling his support for conversion therapy.

Representatives for Mr. Pence did not respond to emails seeking comment this week. But in January, a spokeswoman, Alyssa Farah, responded to Mr. Rippon, telling USA Today, “This accusation is totally false and has no basis in fact.”

Vice President Mike Pence last year. Mr. Pence has been dogged by claims that he supports conversion therapy ever since 2000.


Pete Marovich for The New York Times

In 2016, a spokesman, Marc Lotter, denied that Mr. Pence supported conversion therapy and said it was a “mischaracterization” to read his 2000 campaign statement that way. But he declined to explain what Mr. Pence had been referring to.

Mr. Rippon repeated his criticism of Mr. Pence on Twitter after the USA Today article was published, but he told reporters he had no interest in “picking a fight” with the vice president.

That seemed as if it might be the end of it.

An invitation and a rejection

But two weeks later, things escalated. On Wednesday, USA Today reported that Mr. Pence’s office was so concerned about Mr. Rippon’s criticism that it had taken the unusual step of asking the United States Olympic Committee to arrange “a conversation between the two.”

Mr. Rippon, true to his word, would not meet with the vice president, the paper reported.

That seemed to be too much for Mr. Pence. On Thursday, he lashed out at the paper, tweeting that the report was “fake news” and that the journalist who had written it was bent on dividing Americans. But he was careful not to criticize Mr. Rippon.

Mr. Pence’s communications director, Jarrod Agen, denied that he ever requested a meeting with Mr. Rippon, and said that the USA Today report was “just not accurate.”

“The USA Today report is false & should be corrected,” Mr. Agen tweeted. “VP’s office did not try to arrange a meeting with Mr. Rippon at Olympics.”

But Mr. Rippon’s agent, David Baden, said it was Mr. Pence’s version of events that was not accurate.

“We were contacted by his office and I think the objective was to have a conversation with Adam,” he said in an interview. The request did not come directly to him or Mr. Rippon but “went through the various proper channels and that message was then sent to us,” he said.

He declined to explain what those channels were. The United States Olympic Committee did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Mr. Rippon “obviously respects the office of the vice president and took the request seriously,” he said. But the figure skater “respectfully declined and said after he was done competing he would revisit the request.”

“His job is to be an athlete,” Mr. Baden said. “His mind is on training, competing and doing his best to represent the U.S. going into the Olympics.”

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