Elton John Concerts Protested By Russian Parents’ Group

A parents’ group in Russia is protesting Elton John‘s upcoming concerts there. The committee has asked President Vladimir Putin to cancel the shows because of the singer’s homosexuality.

Just last week, John said he wouldn’t cancel his Dec. 6 show in Moscow because of the nation’s anti-gay legislature. Now The Guardian reports that a parents’ group in the central Ural region of Russia is protesting the concert (as well as one in Kazan scheduled for Dec. 7) because ”the singer intends to come out in support of local sodomites and break the current Russian law, directed at protecting children.”

Specifically, protesters claim that John is violating a ban on “homosexual propaganda” in Russia, a mostly conservative region recently under fire for its discriminatory treatment against gay people. There’s a move to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics because of Russia’s legislation.

John, whose new album ‘The Diving Board’ was released today, told The Guardian last week that boycotting his concert in Moscow isn’t the answer. “As a gay man, I can’t leave those people on their own without going over there and supporting them,” he said. John added that when he toured the Soviet Union in 1979, he had sex with a translator on the roof of a Moscow building.