:bsmilie: Something to light up the day.
From correspondents in Athens
June 11, 2008 03:16am
WHEN is a Lesbian not a lesbian?
An Athens court began grappling with the question today after a group of from the Greek island of Lesbos accused gay women of monopolising the term.
"My mother, my daughter, my sister are ashamed to call themselves Lesbian, meaning residents of Lesbos," Yiannis Achlopitas, a Greek living in the Canadian city of Montreal told the court.
"Our women abroad are forced into hiding...this confusion which is offensive to our place of origin is on the internet, in newspapers, everywhere, you can't imagine the defamation in the United States, Canada, Australia," he said.
Three residents of the Aegean Sea island filed a complaint in April, calling on the Greek Gay and Lesbian Community (OLKE), the country's main homosexual association, to drop the term.
Often referred to in Greece as Mytilene - the name of Lesbos' capital - the island was the home of the poet Sappho, who expressed her love of other women in lyric verses written in the early sixth century BC.
Many locals are rankled by the fact that the resort of Eressos is a popular tourist destination for lesbians.
Among the plaintiffs is the editor of a neo-pagan magazine, Dimitris Lambrou, who demanded today that media worldwide stop using the term to define gay women.
"Hi, my name is Paul and I'm a lesbian," read a banner carried by another member of the Greek diaspora who came to support the islanders' cause.
OLKE's lawyer Themistoklis Kefalas, himself a Lesbos resident, countered that his own daughter never had a problem with the name.
"The term has been in use at least since the eighteenth century," he said.
The court's decision is expected in around a month.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23845709-5005961,00.html
From correspondents in Athens
June 11, 2008 03:16am
WHEN is a Lesbian not a lesbian?
An Athens court began grappling with the question today after a group of from the Greek island of Lesbos accused gay women of monopolising the term.
"My mother, my daughter, my sister are ashamed to call themselves Lesbian, meaning residents of Lesbos," Yiannis Achlopitas, a Greek living in the Canadian city of Montreal told the court.
"Our women abroad are forced into hiding...this confusion which is offensive to our place of origin is on the internet, in newspapers, everywhere, you can't imagine the defamation in the United States, Canada, Australia," he said.
Three residents of the Aegean Sea island filed a complaint in April, calling on the Greek Gay and Lesbian Community (OLKE), the country's main homosexual association, to drop the term.
Often referred to in Greece as Mytilene - the name of Lesbos' capital - the island was the home of the poet Sappho, who expressed her love of other women in lyric verses written in the early sixth century BC.
Many locals are rankled by the fact that the resort of Eressos is a popular tourist destination for lesbians.
Among the plaintiffs is the editor of a neo-pagan magazine, Dimitris Lambrou, who demanded today that media worldwide stop using the term to define gay women.
"Hi, my name is Paul and I'm a lesbian," read a banner carried by another member of the Greek diaspora who came to support the islanders' cause.
OLKE's lawyer Themistoklis Kefalas, himself a Lesbos resident, countered that his own daughter never had a problem with the name.
"The term has been in use at least since the eighteenth century," he said.
The court's decision is expected in around a month.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23845709-5005961,00.html
