@Markus. No, I'm not talking about gay prides.
You know, I often see here such a category of gay people who care more about showing off or proving something rather than about his/her partner.
I can give you another example from my experience. This summer me and my several colleagues (who I've just met) went to the restaurant. Our party was more than 10 persons, so who knows, maybe there was a gay among us. But you wouldn't say much about sexual life of any of us from the first sight. We've got table next to the four young guys. They were dressed up awkwardly, but you see weird people in Moscow everyday)) The thing was they discussed their relationships so loud that only deaf wouldn't hear them. And everytime when somebody just looked at them they were like "Oh, so you have problems with gays?". Waitress asked them to watch their tongues and of course they accussed her of homophobia. To the end of the lunch I had really strong desire to throw them all to the river (we were on the river bank). And that isn't the only scene I've seen resently.

I realise that straight people behave terrible sometimes and that these gays are on display while a lot of normal gay people are forced to hide. But they really make it difficult to accept them all.

@StarDust: I see no point to continue the discussion with somebody who garbles original message. Good luck.

- russian girl of undetermined age, with no make up and short hairs, always blunt and rude, never smiles. Don't know what happened to her, but she hates all men. Something tells me that under other circumstances she wouldn't be a lesbian.

On the contrary, I happened to know a really gorgeous, intelligent man with a sound career. He went to camp with us and proved to be reliable in difficult situations. Couldn't understand why he didn't have a girlfriend for a long time. And he had some unpleasant experience when people turned them back on him because of his nature.

What my point is that there is no need to exaggerate and to tell the world about your sexual preferences. I cann't speak for the whole Russia, but it seems to me that in Moscow gay people feel relevantly safe. At least, I think that sexual crimes against them are commited on the same scale as against straight people. (If straight girl was raped in night club, than even local papers won't write about it. If gay man got punched in the nose like any other man, than international society starts talking about awful repressions in Russia.)

Here you can see gays kissing each other on the street or in night club. But a lot of them behave like a total freaks and do not help the society to accept them.

Also, I believe media, social moods can misguide a young person. I heard that you cann't choose to be gay, it's something you were born with. From my experience it's not so. I can even provide some examples:

- twenty-something cute german girl from wealthy (but apparently disfunctional) family, lives with parents in big house, but in really boring town. Not bright enough to go to Uni. Works as a receptionist in relevantly big company through week. Drinks, nope, has fun)) with her friends in night clubs whole weekends. Claims to be gay, but kisses everybody)) All of her friends consider themselves either gays or bios... Surprisingly high per cent for the small town.

- young boy from Georgia, decided to be an actor in Germany and does everything to fit in. Had a lot of girlfriends but than decided it's cooler to be gay o_O Changes his partners every month. Everytime somebody disagrees with him about anything he begins to whine that he is suppressed minority and nobody understands him.

Somebody wrote here that this law caused the wave of rage against gay community in Russia. That is not true. Nothing has changed because of the law. Russian society always intolerated gays. Was it different in USA or UK 15-20 years ago? I don't know the reason why some people are so intimidated by the idea of gays living next to them. But it does't have nationality, just in Europe and USA people hide this feelings inside.

At the moment in Russia society is going throgh a lot of changes and, as a result, we have some problems with groups of agressive people. We have fights dog-lovers vs. dog-hunters, immigrants vs. locals, atheists vs. religious people and so on. So of course it's possible that we have groups of young people who chase gays (keine Ahnung). But they would do it regardless what law our goverment come up with. Even if they didn't know about gays' existence they would chase somebody else. The problem is much more complicated and lays beyong gays/straights relationship.

This law prohibits the use homosexuals images in ads. I would restrict any sexual images in advertising) I'm not a prude, but I think it's possible to sale a jar of instant coffee without a half-naked lady on the TV screen))

And yeah, I totally believe that all these images from TV, computer screens, magazines affect children and teenagers. But i don't want to develop this subject here.