I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in Russia, unlike in one third of the world's countries, being gay is not a crime.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The problem with Russia is not that it has laws restricting promotion of the gay lifestyle. The problem with Russia is that it has no laws that effectively constrain the strong or protect the weak.
What Russia really needs is not gay rights but human rights, and the rule of law.
When men are arrested without any legal basis and for political reasons, it's merely a routine, everyday occurrence in Russia, and hardly anyone has any sympathy.
I don't have any opinions about Russians. There are celebrity persons in each country. Different people do different things.
Russia is not a homogenous country; it's a very fragmented country.
It should never be a crime to be gay.
In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.
Homosexuality in Russia is a crime and the punishment is seven years in prison, locked up with the other men. There is a three year waiting list.
Imagine trying to be a gay actor, a gay anything in modern Russia? Where to be positively oneself, to be affectionate in public with someone you love of the same gender, or to talk of that love in the hearing of anyone under 18, will put you prison?
Until the year 1967, it was a crime, for which you could be put in prison, to make homosexual love to someone in your own house. If they came in and caught you at it, you could be put into prison. This has changed - I'm talking about England, incidentally.