Music icon Elton John celebrated his 15-year wedding anniversary this week with a plea for LGBT equality around the world.
Elton John and David Furnish entered into a civil partnership in 2005 and were officially married in 2014 when the United Kingdom legalized same-sex unions, as noted by HuffPo. In an Instagram post, John said he and Furnish were the “lucky ones” and pledged to “fight for equality for all.”
“Today @davidfurnish and I are celebrating two anniversaries: 15 years of Civil Partnership and 6 years of marriage. Our relationship gets stronger every day, and I am extremely grateful for the love we share and our two beautiful sons,” he wrote.
“However, we are the lucky ones, as millions of gay people throughout the world are discriminated against because of their sexuality. This is a disgrace. We all deserve to love who we want. We will continue to fight for equality for all,” he added.
View this post on Instagram
Furnish echoed John’s call and also pledged to fight for LGBT equality through the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
“I can’t believe that 15 years has passed since @eltonjohn and I celebrated our Civil Partnership in Britain. What a wonderful day that was. 6 years ago, we renewed our vows and got legally married in front of our two beautiful sons. This type of civil progress was unimaginable when I was growing up,” wrote Furnish.
“Yet despite all this extraordinary positive change, I remind myself that it’s still illegal to be LGBT+ in 70 countries, and that you can be given the death penalty in 12 of those same countries,” he added. “Through our work with the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Elton and I pledge to continue the fight for equality for our LGBT+ brothers and sisters around the world.”
View this post on Instagram
Elton John has been an outspoken LGBT advocate throughout most of his career, severely criticizing those that disagree with certain aspects of the movement. In 2019, for instance, he suggested that Christians who believe homosexual acts to be sinful are the furthest away from God.
Speaking to Variety’s Marc Malkin at the time, John made no distinction between people who believe homosexual acts to be sinful and people who treat members of the LGBT community with cruelty and hatred.
“We’re all God’s kids,” John said, implying that conservative Christians believe that he is not a child of God. “People who should know better in places of responsibility to attack gay people and transgender people . . . I think, to be honest with you, they claim to be close to God. They couldn’t be farther away from God if they tried.”
In the same interview, Elton John also advised LGBT youth to “leave” their homes if they are “unhappy.”
“Their parents don’t understand; religion gives them a hard time,” Elton John said.