Elton John Pens Open Letter Criticizing Putin's 'Duplicity' Toward LGBTQ People
Elton John penned an open letter to Vladimir Putin Friday criticizing the Russian president’s policies toward the LGBTQ community. The letter, published to John’s Facebook, follows Russia’s decision to censor five minutes of Rocketman due to the country’s “homosexual propaganda” law, as well as comments Putin made about sexual diversity in a recent interview.
“I am not trying to insult anyone because we have been condemned for our alleged homophobia. But we have no problem with LGBT persons. God forbid, let them live as they wish,” Putin told the Financial Times. “But some things do appear excessive to us. They claim now that children can play five or six gender roles.”
In response, John wrote to Putin in his open letter, “I was deeply upset when I read your recent interview in the Financial Times. I strongly disagree with your view that pursuing policies that embrace multicultural and sexual diversity are obsolete in our societies.”
John continued, “I find duplicity in your comment that you want LGBT people to ‘be happy’ and that ‘we have no problem in that.’ Yet Russian distributors chose to heavily censor my film Rocketman by removing all references to my finding true happiness through my 25-year relationship with David and the raising of my two beautiful sons. This feels like hypocrisy to me.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/elton-john-open-letter-vladimir-putin-853700/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Elton John is “mistaken” about LGBT rights in Russia, claims Vladimir Putin.
The Russian President was responding to an Instagram post from John, who said that he was deeply upset by prior remarks from Putin that liberal values were “obsolete” and that Putin’s claim of non-interference with LGBT rights seems false in light of the censorship of gay sex scenes in Rocketman in Russia.
“I have a lot of respect for him, he is a genius musician, we all enjoy his music, but I think he is mistaken,” Putin said when asked about Elton John’s comments. Putin was in Osaka attending a G-20 summit.
Putin claimed the Russian government had a “relaxed and unprejudiced” attitude towards LGBT people. But, he added, gender identity decisions can only be made by adults and therefore minors need to be “left alone,” noting that Russian law bans “propaganda of homosexuality among minors.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/vladimir-putin-responds-to-elton-john-instagram-post-on-lgbt-rights/ar-AADBR4Y?li=BBnb7Kz
Uh huh. 