Apparently football is a sin now

[Dystopia]

The Russian position on homosexuality is based upon the fact that the Russian population is declining. It needs more babies. They figure that if they can get more people to have more kids they will be able to maintain a strong country. Therefore the spread of homosexuality is a national security issue for them. Their national identity could cease to exist fairly soon unless the trend is reversed.

It's anti-gay or anti-traditional family as the law puts it, it's illegal to spread information incentiving people to be gay and promoting gay lifestyle, but I don't think it's illegal to make peaceful protest for gay rights and talk about it with adults. Anyway, Putin said it best when he mentioned comparing Russian with countries where being gay gets you the death penalty is of no use. In Russia being gay is not even a noun, it's a verb, it's considered a behavior that is contagious and can be prevented.

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To spread information to minors. Yes it's illegal but if they abstain from spreading information or 'propaganda' they will be fine, even the jail time is not very high, most people will just pay fines, Russia needs to fix it but they still are better than third world countries where being gay inside your house is a crime. I don't think gays will be persecuted if they abstain from spreading information, sure there are some videos of people beating and humiliating gays in Russia but not all Russian people would do that. I think not doing the WC just because Russians don't like gays is stupid, it's not a significant issue enough to ensure we abstain from doing the world cup here. If they had severe violations of human rights that would be another problem

All I see here is excuse after excuse for intolerance.

Are you calling me intolerant? I don't have prejudice with gay people, on the contrary, I simply think not doing a sports event in a country because they don't like gays is not justified, we are there for the sports and competition, not for the country's politics. Should we abstain from hosting a world cup in the US (hypothetically) because not all States allow gay marriage? I do agree that any country should fullfill basic human rights, but in this case it's not serious enough to ban the world cup, it should be about sports and not about putting our noses in other countries politic affairs. And Russia certainly won't accept international demands of tolerance, so it's useless, I consider the Ukraine Crisis if it got more serious on Russia's side would be more reasonable reason to ban the world cup in russia.