Russian lesbians stage selfie kiss plane protest (in front of architect of Russia’s anti-gay laws)

[Jim Lane]

40. Wikipedia articles are usually based on cited sources.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but that doesn't mean that anyone can just write that there are no elephants in Africa and expect it to remain in the article. Especially on controversial topics that get a lot of attention, you can expect that there will be footnotes for many or all of the assertions in the article.

In this instance, the passage you query, from the introductory section of the Wikipedia article on "LGBT rights in Russia", is cited in Wikipedia to a report by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, made available on the website of UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency. This document, titled "Russia: Update to RUS13194 of 16 February 1993 on the treatment of homosexuals", supports the assertion that, under the Russian Federation criminal code, consensual anal intercourse between adult males was punishable until being decriminalized in 1993.

The same source says that lesbian relationships were never criminalized in the first place, so this is getting a little far afield from the subject of the OP. My main point is not about LGBT rights in Russia but about the use of Wikipedia as a source.