Boozhy Headlines: The Latest Czech Mate

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova has regained her Czech citizenship, and served up a very public renunciation of her American citizenship, nearly 30 years after fleeing the former Communist regime for the USA.  While Navratilova proudly gained US citizenship nearly three decades ago and has participated as an Olympian for the US, she has long been a vocal opponent to the Bush administration.  And this week, in an obvious political statement, is refuting the United States under the existing administration, stating:

"The thing is that we elected Bush, that is worse. Against that, nobody chose a Communist government in Czechoslovakia."

Comments

[mikeinbama]

She's full of shit! She's won't be moving back to the Cech Republic. It's amazes me that people come to America to get rich and famous and when thing get tough, they bail and go back to the shithole they came from.

[vonBrandenburg]

She can do whatever she wants. The Czech Republic has come a long way since it was part of the communist Czechoslovakia.

[tb]

Mike,

The Czech Republic is a perfectly lovely country, Prague in particular. Fun facts: gays may serve openly in the Czech military and the Czech Republic has civil unions for gays.

It's kind of obnoxious and ignorant to refer to countries that are not the U.S. as per se "shitholes." I'd certainly rather be an out gay person in Prague than in the American south.

[GayPolitico]

What an ungrateful bitch. It was this country that allowed her to flourish and make her millions. Her papers were rushed through immiration and she was allowed to stay here. Go back lady..do us all a favor and elave your passport behind...TO compare this nation to a Communist State? Please if she ahd done something like this critiquing the Soviets she would have had an "accident". Funny how she says all these things overseas in the first place...get out lady and don't fucking comeback.

[Kyle Michel Sullivan]

I was born and bred in the US but since Bush got elected the second time, I've been considering leaving. On a recent trip to Berlin I even looked into teaching English there, but it's a huge step to take. Leaving behind family and friends.

However, if McCain is anointed president, it may be a necessary one, because that will mean the end of the United States as a free country and a complete reversal of what few rights gays have managed to gain here.

So I understand where Martina's coming from. And why she wants to return.

[Perfect Phallus]

Personally, I think Martina looks rather fetching in black.

[Zlexar]

Go if you want Martina, but if you do please stay there this time. The U.S. has its problems, and we don't need to add to them by having fair-weather citizens who can't stay and commit to making this country better when the going gets tough.

I hope that Czechoslovakia is as good to her as the U.S. was to her.

[Sean Bugg]

I interviewed Martina late last year for Metro Weekly, shortly after this story of her "re-defecting" surfaced. She was clear with me that it's untrue -- she has duel citizenship now primarily for business purposes. The interview is here: http://www.metroweekly.com/feature/?ak=3059. The first question I asked is this:

METRO WEEKLY: First off, in the October issue of Tennis, you had a full-page response to a joke the magazine had printed implying you were leaving the U.S. for the Czech Republic. You've always been very politically active and the subject of commentary -- why was this incident so important for you to respond to?

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: This was something completely out of left field and, I thought, completely unwarranted and inaccurate. That's why I had to say that it was not even funny. I was really upset that my own tennis community would comment on me like that. It was obviously a [person of a] politically opposing view who wrote that and let their personal feelings get in the way of proper reporting. It was very hurtful, which is why I took the time to call them and say, ''What the heck is going on there?''

They gave me the forum to write a page and speak my piece, which was great. Usually when a newspaper or magazine writes something inaccurate, they write a correction on the back page or buried somewhere -- it's a big article and a small correction. This one was sort of a small dig, but to me it was a very deep dig, obviously, and I was able to write a rebuttal that was much longer than the original article. It was a good thing to explain where I was coming from.

[daveb]

Good for Martina. I was born and bred in the US, and I have left. Fed up with being treated as a second-class citizen and a political punching bag, I moved to the UK about 2 years ago and plan on applying for citizenship in a couple of years. No place is perfect, but few countries outside of the US (along with Iran and Saudi Arabia) punish gay people as a political ploy for maintaining power. That people in the US are even remotely thinking of voting for another Republican after the past administration is ridiculous, but not that surprising.