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Slovakia’s deputy prime minister, Tomas Taraba, has announced that he will not represent his country at the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
Taraba was among the many who slammed Friday’s opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Games as highly disrespectful to Christians.
“I was supposed to represent Slovakia at the closing ceremony, but for the normal world, this Olympics will forever remain a symbol of degenerate decadence, which abused the beauty of sport and turned it into progressive political theater,” the Slovakian official wrote on his personal Facebook page. “Therefore, I decided not to participate in the closing ceremony.”
Taraba also pointed out that the “disgraceful” opening ceremony is now being removed from the internet by the International Olympic Committee.
“The insults to Christianity and the decadence presented have reached such a level that they have offended the whole normal world, which understands the difference between culture and garbage,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Taraba has served as deputy to Prime Minister Robert Fico. He has stepped in to shoulder some of his responsibilities after Fico was shot multiple times by an assassin in mid-May. Fico has since recovered and returned to office, but Taraba had been delegated to travel to Paris in his stead.
Christians from around the world have protested the Paris organizers’ decision to conclude the opening ceremonies with a tableau from Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper.’ The Renaissance painter’s famous depiction of Jesus Christ and his apostles was reimagined as a Bacchanalia involving drag queens, homosexuals and transsexuals.
“We imagined a ceremony to show our values and our principles so we gave a very committed message,” Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet told reporters on Saturday. “The idea was to really trigger a reflection. We wanted to have a message as strong as possible.”
Thomas Jolly, the ceremony’s artistic director, also defended his work. “We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everybody,” he said.
The International Olympic Committee has responded to criticism by removing the highlights reel of the ceremony from its YouTube channel. It has also filed copyright strikes against creators who have used any footage from the event online.