A Greek court denies the petition of three residents of Lesbos to restrict the adjective “Lesbian” from being applied to gay women, and orders the complainants to pay court costs. I’m sure almost everyone has heard about this case by now–it first hit the news quite a while back–but I thought that while I’m posting links today, I might as well hit this one as well.
These residents were apparently upset that some gay people were using the word “lesbian” to refer to themselves, and decided to do something about it. Of course, they didn’t decide to do something constructive about it–I’m sure the fact that it has absolutely no power over global speech habits had something to do with the court’s decision. Note that the identification of gay people and Lesbos has led to a protracted upswing in island tourism.
One cannot help but call to mind the recent flap over the American Family Association’s policy of globally replacing the word “gay” with the word “homosexual” on their “news” site OneNewsNow. At least, one cannot help it if one is Jane and has a lively sense of the absurd.
