Russian TV host Anton Krasovsky fired for coming out on air

A RUSSIAN TV presenter was sacked after he revealed live on air that he is gay.

Anton Krasovsky, 37, a former editor-in-chief at KontrTV, a Kremlin-backed inteet and cable television network he helped launch, was fired after finishing his show in January.

\"I"m gay, and I"m just the same person as you, my dear audience, as President Putin, as Prime Minister Medvedev and the deputies of our Duma,\" he said.

Now, he is speaking out against a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia.

\"Russian gay people need inteational support, but inteational support is not a boycott of Sochi Olympic games, because Olympic games is an inteational event,\" he told CNN. \"It's not a Russian event, it's not a personal event of Putin, it's an event of millions and millions of people ... 7 million people in Russia are gay. If you want to boycott Olympic games in Russia, you're trying to boycott 7 million gay people in Russia. You want to boycott me.\"

A new law in Russia bans \"propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations,\" but Russian politicians say it doesn't outlaw homosexuality or gay sex, which was made legal in 1993, but merely discourages discussion of it among people younger than 18.

The stance has prompted calls for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics or for it to be moved.

US President Barack Obama has condemned Russia's legislation and said that it is one of the reasons he cancelled a trip to Russia next month.