Topline
About 100 conservative Muslims protested a forthcoming Coldplay concert in Indonesia on Friday morning, according to the Associated Press. The protests were directed at the band’s long-standing support of the LGBTQ+ community and its frontman, who has publicly admitted that he has largely abandoned his religious upbringing.
Important Information
Numerous people protested in front of the American embassy in Jakarta on Friday, demanding the withdrawal of a show that had been scheduled for Wednesday at Gelora Bung Karno stadium and sold 70, 000 tickets.
According to AP, protests claimed that the singer’s support for the LGBTQ+ group posed a threat to” Indonesian moral grain,” the display is suggestive, and lead singer Chris Martin is an “atheist.”
In an interview with Howard Stern, Martin, who was raised as an evangelical Christian, declared that he is an “alltheist” and that” God is outside and everyone.”
The Indonesian Ulema Council reportedly requested that the show’s promoters make sure the band does n’t use any LGBTQ-themed acts or messaging, and the minister of tourism and creative economy assured them that it would continue.
Important Quote
The lead singer of Coldplay, who has long been a solid admirer of LGBT, is an atheist, according to Novel Bamukmin, the opposition representative. ” We must accept their music here and their plan.”
Unexpected Point
Both Lady Gaga and The 1975 have experienced issues with music in Indonesia. According to the AP, Lady Gaga postponed her 2012 Born This Way Ball music due to security concerns. Since its 2011 launch, the song” Born This Way” has been a gay hymn. After lead vocalist Matty Healy kissed a female bandmate during the efficiency in opposition of the nation’s anti-gay laws, the 1975 music in Malaysia was cut short, and the group was banned from Kuala Lumpur. The group therefore postponed performances in Taipei and Jakarta. Healy remarked,” I do n’t see the point of inviting the 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with.”
Qualifications information
Despite the fact that being gay is certainly a crime in Indonesia, the country has historically discriminated against members of the LGBTQ+ area. Because Indonesian culture views “marriage divine and a religious ritual,” same-sex marriage is not recognized by law in the country, and the county’s minister of spiritual affairs has stated that this is unlikely to ever happen. There are no safeguards against accommodation or work discrimination for LGBTQ+ individuals. The Indonesian government does not have any obvious anti-gay rules, but a number of men were reportedly fired last year and some were jailed after their same-sex sexual activity was discovered. Children cannot be adopted by same-sex people in Indonesia. Human Rights Watch raised concerns about a new legal code that was passed in the nation last year that makes it illegal to own consensual sex outside of marriage despite the 2016 attempt to make homosexuality illegal, which was unsuccessful. The lobbying group warned that same-sex lovers will be the most affected by the rules because they are unable to get married. Indonesia was ranked 87th out of 146 nations in the 2023 Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum.
Tangent
By the time the Songs of the Spheres world tour ends in September, Coldplay may have traveled to five continents. Martin promised never to visit again until the band could make sure its displays were environmentally friendly, and the journey is the first since the launch of the 2019 record Everyday Life. The latest journey, which uses biodegradable confetti, a low-power-drawing audio system, and trees planted for every solution sold, claims to have quarter the carbon dioxide emissions of the 2015–2017 A Mind Full of Dreams tour.
On June 25, 2023, Coldplay’s Chris Martin will perform at Stadio San Siro in Milan, Italy.
via Getty Images, Corbis
