Current laws in the Russian Federation impose sanctions against both speech deemed offensive to Russia’s traditional religious groups, and speech considered “propaganda” of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. This Featured Note offers a contemporary examination of the historical, cultural and political forces underlying these ongoing trends, and offers an interdisciplinary consideration of issues surrounding the intersection of liberty of religious expression with liberty of LGBT expression in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This is historically contextualized through consideration of the political integration of church and state as a contributing factor toward limitations on these political freedoms. Ultimately, a vision of civic pluralism is advanced which incorporates a holistic view of expressive liberty for minority sociocultural groups within Russia.