Elton John has urged people to support the Kaleidoscope Trust campaign against homophobia around the world. He applauded Kaleidoscope for confronting the worsening situation facing gay men and women in many countries and for offering ‘real support and solidarity’ to locally-based campaigners.

Elton described the Kaleidoscope Trust as ‘a remarkable group…with global reach and a simple goal’, on the side of people who wanted to live and to love who they chose.

Writing on the Huffington Post website, Elton said that when he was born ‘it was a crime to be gay in Britain, but I survived through the battles to see the day when I could have a civil partnership and a son and be accepted by all but a small circle of bigoted hold-outs. It didn’t happen by magic. It happened because gay people organised and stood together and appealed to the decency and empathy of the heterosexual majority.’

In an article with the journalist and campaigner Johann Hari, Elton said of the Kaleidoscope Trust: ‘It will carry out its work sensitively, guided by the help gay people in the group want. The murderous homophobes want to claim that homosexuality is an “imperialist” or “alien” import — so it is crucial that we don’t play into their hands. This is a fight that needs to be lead by local people. But we can offer real support and solidarity — just as the fight against Apartheid was led within South Africa, but supported across the globe. This doesn’t detract for a second from the urgent fight for equality back at home. We can do both.’

He added that ‘We know what will happen if we do nothing, and if Kaleidoscope doesn’t attract the supporters it needs,’ and urged people to back the work of the Kaleidoscope Trust through their website.

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