MOSCOW — Russian anti-gay groups are calling on the Putin government to ban two upcoming December concerts by openly gay British pop artist Sir Elton John.
“The statement by this gay guy — Elton John — about his support for gays and other perverts during the upcoming concert in Moscow is an insult to all Russian citizens,” said Yuri Ageshchev, executive director of the Star Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods.
“It also makes a mockery of our recently enacted law against the public propaganda of gay ideas,” he told Novy Region news agency.
The outrage over the pop star’s scheduled appearance in the semi-autonomous Republic of Tatarstan’s capital city of Kazan, in south central Russia, was echoed by the Ural Parents Committee, a group of conservative activists, who wrote an open letter to Russian President Putin: “The singer intends to come out in support of local sodomites and break the current Russian law, directed at protecting children.”
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Ageshchev appealed to Russian Orthodox church authorities and Russian citizens to oppose Elton John’s Dec. 6 concert at Moscow’s Crocus City Music Hall, which he called an “amoral sabbath.”
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“As a gay man, I can’t leave those people on their own without going over there and supporting them. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’ve got to go,” he told British Media last week.
In addition to the Moscow performance, he is scheduled to perform in Kazan on Dec. 7.