“Perhaps it would be more correct and humane to not pay any attention to this at all,” the RIA Novosti commentator Michael Sheinkman observed. “In the end, everyone has his faults. Although not everyone tries to elevate them into virtues.”

Mr. Sheinkman’s take on the matter was broadcast by a state news agency that was reorganized late last year under the direction of the pro-Kremlin pundit Dmitry Kiselev, who is known for both his extreme nationalism and frank homophobia.

As Buzzfeed News reported, Russia’s deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, took time out during a diplomatic visit to India to mock Mr. Rinkevics for describing himself as proud of being gay. “He found something to be proud of,” Mr. Rogozin wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Though, if you have nothing else to be proud of, you can be proud of that :)”