Chris Pine recently spoke out against the U.S.'s involvement in protesting Russia's anti-gay legislation, The Associated Press reports, the 33-year-old actor declaring Russia's law "clearly awful, archaic, hostile nonsense."
"I think we should do more than just send gay Olympians there," he said during a promotional interview for the new film film "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit," in reference to the U.S. sending openly gay former Olympic athletes to the opening ceremony on Feb. 7 for the Russian-hosted Winter Olympics.
''What's happening there in terms of gay rights or the lack of it is extraordinary and awful," Pine added. "I's not like the Bay of Pigs where nuclear war is going to start at the drop of a hat. At least it's not there."
Last year, President Vladimir Putin passed a bill into law on "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors," which was originally entitled "homosexual propaganda," effectively criminalizing "public expression of support for nontraditional relationships," according to the AP, including gay, bisexual, lesbian, trans* and intersex people.
The highly controversial legislation has been criticized globally for its discriminatory nature and complications with other Russian laws currently in place, including article 9 of the Russian Constitution, "as well as articles 8, 10, and 14 of the European Convention on human rights," as argued by former Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov back in 2004.
