Out athlete Adam Rippon reportedly
turned down a request from Vice President Mike Pence to meet.
The 28-year-old Rippon, who came out as
gay to Skating magazine in 2015, is one of just a handful of
out athletes heading to the Olympic Winter Games in South Korea.
In January, Rippon, a figure skater,
criticized the White House's selection of Pence to lead the 2018 U.S.
Olympic delegation.
“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,” Rippon
said, a reference to Pence's reported support for therapies that
attempt to alter the sexuality or gender identity of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender people. A Pence spokesman in 2016 denied
that Pence supports so-called conversion therapy.
Pence's press secretary responded to
Rippon's comments, saying that the claim that Pence supports such
therapies is “totally false” and “has no basis in fact.”
(Related: Trump
once joked that Mike Pence “wants to hang” all gay people.)
According to USA
Today, Pence's staff asked the U.S. Olympic Committee to set
up a conversation between Pence and Rippon just one hour after
Rippon's comments were published online. Rippon turned down the
offer, according to two sources.