This is absolutely false. From Wikipedia (with many, many, detailed citations and sources):
"Under the statute it is effectively illegal to hold any gay pride events, speak in defense of gay rights, or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships."
You cannot hold a pride parade (a minor might see it); you cannot distribute brochures (a minor might read it); you cannot have a website (a minor might see it). The freedoms we take for granted in the West, limited though they may be, simply do not exist in Russia. Every single item that mentioned as something you can do in Utah is something you cannot do in Russia, by law. And that's not even touching on the more restrictive laws in many regions and cities, nor on the surge in hate crimes and other unofficial repression.
You're getting a lot of downvotes, but I see most people aren't bothering to explain your error to you. Let me help:
We're concerned with the amount of oppression actually occurring in Russia, and with the actual life of actual gay men and women in Russia. Your comments and links focus on the laws, but it is very possible to pass a wonderful sounding law and then ignore it in practice. In fact, Russia's predecessor, the Soviet Union, was famous for doing just this. Their constitution guaranteed a wide range of freedoms which were never actually enjoyed by the subjects of the Soviet empire.
If we want to evaluate the drafting of a law, we would of course turn to a legal scholar; their views on phrasing are critical. But if you want to know about life on the street, you turn to a journalist.
You stress the word "effectively" in the phrase "effectively illegal", as if this undermines the importance. It does nothing of the kind, because we want to know if you can hold an actual gay pride parade in Moscow (which you cannot), not whether any given law, if read and applied fairly, would ban gay pride parades (which it arguably does not).
And I see this same mistake (trying to analyse the laws rather than their application) repeatedly in your comments and in the sources you cite. You're effectively arguing that it doesn't matter if a law is being used to repress and hurt people, if you can find someone arguing that the law shouldn't be used this way. As if this magically makes the actual harm to actual people go away. But this is nonsense.
At the end of the day, their are gay pride parades in, eg, Utah, but not in, eg, Moscow. And everything you've said and linked to does not address this core point, that homosexuals are being brutally repressed in Russia, and not in the US.
For the other people who might be gay, and for the children who might be gay (at least 1% of them even at maximum oppression, and much more in an accepting society), no. You have no right to interfere, to force your unscientific and bigoted ideas on them, or to harm, oppress or imprison them. Your law is wrong. Your culture is wrong. Stop.
I already made myself quite explicit here, I think -- the rules governing the situation, and the where it actually goes (whether it is legal to promote being gay or to have six wifes, etc.) is a matter of collective choice -- which the overwhelming majority here has made long ago, and which is now formalized by the law.
And exactly matching your point on the colorful percentage varying depending on the established attitude, we plain prefer our future to remain 99% hetero (and not, say, become 80%), that simple :)
Speaking of culture, mine, I believe, is, sadly, better than yours (again, bigot you back!), as is my understanding of what is actually happening here.
No one speaks of oppression here -- those genetically different should possess all the usual rights (and even public sympathy to the complications their relative loneliness brings, not hatred).
Rights, but not the means to "convert" others in a long-term -- as where the society as a whole goes is a holistic choice, with the voices of 1% playing roughly proportional role.
Of course nobody speaks of oppression. Except the ones who do and spend time in jail for it.
And, no, the majority does not get to dictate the public behavior of the minority, so far as it does not harm others, except in a society that has internalized the intrinsic subhumanity of that minority. Which you have. You've washed your brain and I am done with you.
It's amazing that there are people who still think that letting gay people be publicly gay makes more gay people. Regressive parts of the U.S. have that problem, too, but at least they're dying off.
Some minors are gay. Now they are criminalized for even talking about themselves. See the recent example (which they backed off from due to international pressure)[1]. This is an immensely oppressive law, it needs to end immediately, and defending it is unconscionable.
