Lesbians of Lesbos arise

Image via Wikipedia

The Island of Lesbos located in the Agean Sea, is apart of a Series of Islands which makes up the Greek Islands. Lesbos is also the eight largest in the Mediterranean Sea and it exists as a part of the Lesbos Prefecture. It has a population of some 90,000 people and a total livable area of some 1,630km2. Those who are natives of the Island are known as Lesbians.

Some of you may be wondering why this little Geography lesson is of any great importance. Well it would appear that the Lesbians (thats the people of Lesbos, male and female rather than the female homosexual) are a little tired of being associated with Homosexual Couture. As you may have guessed or known, the Island of Lesbos is the former home of the Greek Poet, Sappho. Sappho's works are few and far between now and many have been lost to antiquity. Despite this, her reprutation has endured to the modern day. According to that wonderful source of Wikipedia

Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and genders. The word "lesbian" derives from the name of the island of her birth, Lesbos; her name is also the origin of its less common synonym sapphic. The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various women, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate. Whether these poems are meant to be autobiographical is not known, although elements of other parts of Sappho's life do make appearances in her work, and it would be compatible with her style to have these intimate encounters expressed poetically, as well. Her homoerotica should be placed in the seventh century (BC) context. The poems of Alcaeus and later Pindar record similar romantic bonds between the members of a given circle.^[22]

Soucre: Wikipedia.com

So what have the Lesbians of Lesbos taken exception too exactly? Well According to the Telegraph and CNN, the islanders have taken exception to the Greek LGBT Group OLKE using the phrase Lesbian in their title. According to CNN:

"This is not an aggressive act against gay women," Lambrou said. "Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want (the group) to remove the word lesbian from their title."

He said the plaintiffs targeted the group because it is the only officially registered gay group in Greece to use the word lesbian in its name. The case will be heard in an Athens court on June 10.

Source: CNN

Its an interesting Case I guess, but its a load of horse shit to be honest. A National LGBT group should Of course recognise all its members, either within its title or within its mandate. I understand where the Lesbians of Lesbos (ie the natives) may have a problem with having their apparent regional identity associated with the name Lesbians (ie women who love women) but to be honest, even the language above from CNN suggests that it targeted the Group deliberately because it uses Lesbian in its title. Should a Precedent be set, then the possibility for using Lesbian (ie women who love women) could possibly be forbidden for being used.

This comes on foot of an ultimatium issued by OLKE back in March after they uncovered a loophole in Greek Civil Marriage law which only specified persons and not specifically gender. This was tested in March by a Lesbian couple who got married civilly in the Athens suburb Kessairiani. You can read more about that on 365gay.com. Now if only it was as easy as that in Ireland. Oh wait thats right, there is no Constitutional definition of "marriage" by the Supreme Court of Ireland despite what the AG thinks. But sure nothing in life is ever that easy I guess.

Anyway to finish off the post, I find Southpark (surprisingly) somewhat appropriate. :-)