Elton John is encouraging queers to fight political “hostility” during this year’s Pride Month, declaring, “This is not a moment for silence or looking away.”
“The hostility is real and it is growing,” Elton John told Out magazine. “We are seeing rights rolled back, funding cuts, and communities that were already vulnerable being made more so.”
“This is not a moment for silence or looking away,” the “Rocket Man” singer continued, adding that the Elton John Impact Awards “are one way of saying clearly — we are here, we are proud, and we are not going away.”
The Elton John Impact Awards are being presented as a podcast series “to reach more people at a pivotal time in history,” Out reported.
“Art and visibility have always been part of how this community survives, and that hasn’t changed,” Elton John told the magazine.
The “Tiny Dancer” singer and his husband, David Furnish, have reportedly launched a Pride Month initiative this June.
“We are focused on protecting what the LGBTQ+ community built, because most people don’t know they built it,” Furnish told Out.
Elton John’s husband went on to assert, “Gay men transformed modern medicine during the AIDS crisis.”
“They fought for faster access to life-saving drugs, forced their way into the scientific conversation, and created community-based healthcare models now considered standard practice around the world,” he continued.
“That legacy is under threat right now, from funding cuts, criminalisation, and political hostility,” Furnish added. “But ending AIDS is still possible. The science has never been better. But the systems and communities built to deliver it have to survive first.”
“That is what we are fighting for,” Furnish proclaimed.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.