Russia’s stance on LGBTQI rights is pretty crappy to put it mildly. Not only are there no legal protections for the LGBTQI community, Russia recently passed an anti-gay propaganda law in 2013 that’s all kinds of awful. Needless to say that this hasn’t gone down well with many folks and the latest to protest this law comes is a band I never thought I would ever mention in an article about LGBTQI rights: Rammstein.
According to Consequence of Sound, guitarists Paul Landers and Richard Kruspe gave the biggest “F you” to Vladimir Putin and Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law yet by kissing each other midway through Rammstein’s Moscow concert, which many took as a sign of protest.
The band clearly knew what they were doing as they posted a photo of the big moment to the Instagram and captioned it with “Russia, we love you!” Subtle.
Now this isn’t a new thing for Rammstein as they’ve been kissing each other and supporting the LGBTQI community all over Europe for their world tour – frontman Till Lindemann even waved a Pride flag while crowdsurfing in an inflatable boat during a Poland concert – but this moment clearly had a massive impact on the Moscow crowd, who went absolutely bonkers at the moment.
As for what happens if you break Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law, foreign offenders “may be arrested and detained for up to 15 days, then deported, or fined up to 5,000 rubles [$115AUD] and deported.”
That’s pretty harsh but seeing as how this means Russian authorities would have to go arrest a band who are known for wielding massive flamethrowers for laughs, I don’t think they’re going to worry too much about getting fined or deported.
Rammstein’s act of defiance is just the latest in a line of notable protests against Russia’s anti-LGBTQI stance. Madonna and Elton John have both denounced the country’s laws while performing concerts in St. Petersburg while others like Cher, Ellie Goulding and Sam Smith all refused to perform at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
So there you go, Rammstein are now our new heroes to showing solidarity with Russia’s LGBTQI community. If Putin wasn’t a fan of the band and their music before, he certainly won’t be one now.