Last time we checked, Elton John was still British. So let’s just set aside the fact that he couldn’t possibly be a second-class citizen in the United States because he’s not a citizen to begin with.
Nevertheless, the washed-up rock and roll star is pissy – very pissy indeed – about California’s gay marriage ban.
The Associated Press has the details:
The outspoken British piano man, who became a parent to a baby boy on Christmas Day with partner David Furnish, added that “as I get older, I get more angry about it.”
“In this country, we need more dialogue,” he said during an interview Friday. “We don’t need any more stone throwing. We don’t need any more vitriol. We need people to say, ‘OK. I’m straight. You’re gay. Let’s get along. I’m Republican. You’re Democratic. Let’s work together.’ I’m sick and tired of people being hateful to each other in this country.”
John disappointed some gay rights activists after California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage passed in 2008 when he said he had no desire to get married and was satisfied with his civil partnership in England.
He sang a different tune Wednesday when he praised the effort to overturn Proposition 8 and promised to do everything he could to support it, even though he is British.
A story from the Editor regarding Elton John’s devotion to equality:
I have a very good friend who is a muckeymuck executive with a major foreign corporation. One day I visited him in his office and noticed that he had a photo of himself with Elton John on his wall. Elton had one arm around my friend, the other arm around his wife, and a big smile on his face.
“Cool,” I said, “What’s Elton John like?”
He said his company had hired John to perform at a major corporate meeting. Part of the deal was that he would pose for photos with the executives and their wives after performing.
So after the show, which my friend said was terrific, the executives and their wives lined up to have their photos taken with John. According to my friend, John stood there sullenly and refused to speak to any of the executives as they had their photos taken. One by one, he robotically put an arm around each of them, flashed a big, phony smile for the instant each photo was taken, and then returned to his sullen, silent self. He chose to ignore the people who had just paid him a hefty fee to perform for an hour.
I think that if you asked my friend, he’d say Elton John treated him like a second class citizen.
Source: Associated Press
