Carly Rae Jepsen Drops Boy Scouts Concert Over Anti-Gay Policy
Carly Rae Jepsen has canceled a concert appearance for the Boy Scouts of America because of her opposition to the organization’s controversial policy banning openly gay members. The 27 year-old Canadian singer announced her withdrawal from July’s National Scout Jamboree on Twitter.
Jepsen – whose music has few traces of politics, egalitarian or otherwise – threw her hat into the ideological ring Tuesday morning, tweeting her support of the “ongoing battle for gay rights” as “an artist who believes in equality for all people.”
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Jepsen’s cancellation comes on the heels of another Jamboree headliner’s tentative dropping out: the band Train said yesterday that they would only play the July concert if the Boy Scouts of America makes “the right decision before then” — a reference to a meeting in May, when the policy will go up for a vote.
In protesting the Boy Scouts’ policy, both Jepsen and Train acknowledged a petition on Change.org that encouraged them to remove themselves from the concert’s lineup. The petition, started by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has supporters that number in the tens of thousands.