On December 8, 2014, members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) changed an important component of their charter by refusing to award future Olympic Games to countries hostile to the gay community.
The vote, officially known as Proposal 14, was approved during the group’s meeting in Monaco and stated that discrimination against anyone, whether for gender, race, politics or religion was “incompatible” with the Olympics.
The move was directly tied to the fact that the 2014 Winter Games were held in Sochi, Russia. That country approved a number of anti-gay statutes that led to some people calling for a boycott to protest that bigotry.
The next three Olympics have been selected, with the 2022 Winter and 2024 Games still undecided. Next year, the Summer Games will be held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The last in that group is the 2020 Summer Games, which has been awarded to Tokyo, Japan. None of those three countries have had any overt issues related to discrimination against the gay community.
The 2022 Winter Games could present a tight situation for this ruling, since the current favorite to host is Beijing, China, which hosted the 2008 Summer Games. China has had a number of issues related to human rights violations, though nothing specifically targeted at gays.
The only other option is Kazakhstan, where anti-gay laws were in place until recently being found unconstitutional, which some see as an attempt to curry favor with the IOC.