Selena Gomez Denied Russian Visa Due To Pro-LGBT Views

Selenators in Russia are feeling pretty bummed out right now, I'd imagine. Selena Gomez won't be able to play any dates in the country because her visa to perform in the even greater white north was denied. The promoters claim the move was a direct result of Gomez's support for LGBT rights.

Visas for foreign performers have been harder to come by ever since Madonna and Lady Gaga spoke out last year for the gay and trans community at concerts in the country. Using a concert as a venue to support gay rights is against Russia's notoriously stringent anti-gay propaganda laws. 

The promoters of Selena's concert see the move as a bit of a slippery slope that will lead to no outside performers coming to Russia.

"Not a single person is going to visit us if the Prosecutor General's Office starts disputing something or looking for guilty parties," said Petersburg Music Industry head Yevgeny Finkelshtein, according to RIA Novosti.

While Gomez hasn't been anywhere near as outspoken on the issue of gay rights as Madonna or Lady Gaga, she has aligned herself with the gay community and was being pressured by a Change.org petition to speak up during her Russian shows.

In spite of the strict anti-gay laws, singer Elton John still plans to perform in Moscow in December. 

"I'm supposed to be going to Moscow in December," John said in an interview with The Guardian. "I've got to go. And I've got to think about what I'm going to say very carefully. There's two avenues of thought: do you stop everyone going, ban all the artists coming in from Russia? But then you're really leaving the men and women who are gay and suffering under the anti-gay laws in an isolated situation. As a gay man, I can't leave those people on their own without going over there and supporting them. I don't know what's going to happen, but I've got to go." 

(Via Moscow Times)