Sir Elton John has criticized the
removal of a memorial to Steve Jobs following the coming out of Apple
CEO Tim Cook.
The memorial, a six-foot-tall iPhone
that doled out biographical information about Jobs' accomplishments,
took photos and emitted free wi-fi, was removed earlier this month
from the yard of a St. Petersburg technical university. The company
that installed the monument said that it violated Russia's law
prohibiting the promotion of “gay propaganda” to minors.
According to a post on John's Facebook
page, he spoke out during a concert in St. Petersburg, telling
the crowd: “I'm not big on technology, but I love my iPad! … How
dignified that St. Petersburg should erect a memorial to Steve Jobs,
the remarkable founder of Apple.”
“Can this be true? Steve's memory is
re-written because his successor at Apple, Tim Cook, is gay?! Does
that also make iPads gay propaganda?! Is Tchaikovsky's beautiful
music ‘sexually perverting’?!” he rhetorically asked.
“As a gay man, I've always felt so
welcome here in Russia,” John continued. “Stories of Russian
fans – men and women who fell in love dancing to 'Nikita' or their
kids who sing along to 'Circle of Life' – mean the world to me. If
I'm not honest about who I am, I couldn't write this music. It's not
gay propaganda. It's how I express life. If we start punishing
people for that, the world will lose its humanity.”
John has previously criticized Russia's
anti-gay law from inside its borders. Last year, he dedicated a
Moscow performance to the memory of a 23-year-old man from Volgograd
who was allegedly murdered for being gay.