Lesbos court decision
Jul. 22nd, 2008 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danalwynJust when I was feeling the urge to offend another group of people, Reuters rides to the rescue with the daily news. Ah internet, how would I make an ass of myself without it?
This just in:
Athens, Greece - A court decision by a Greek court this week, ruling in favor of the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, may force thousands of Lesbians - homosexual women - to find something to do other than laugh at a small group of Lesbians - inhabitants of the island of Lesbos. The suit, lodged by a small group of Lesbos inhabitants, intended to restrict the usage of the word Lesbian, and prevent it from referring to homosexual women. Had the suit succeeded in Greece, it was originally intended to serve as the foundation for an international campaign to redefine the word Lesbian everywhere so that it only referred to the inhabitants of Lesbos.
Their defeat in this early court case will force thousands, perhaps hundred of thousands of Lesbians to abandon long term plans to entertain themselves by laughing at people attempting to ban the word Lesbian.
"It really ruins my chances," said Maria Smith, of Manhattan, NY, a prominent lesbian who is not from Lesbos. "I thought I had a good chance at being the first American sued by some guys from that island in Greece over referring to myself as a Lesbian. I had a good following, a good setup, some local prominence, even got the local ACLU rep on speed-dial. I wanted to be the test case. Have you ever been a test case? I thought I might be able to get all the way to the Supreme Court."
She looked sadly at the piles of legal documents required for a major court case, all now tragically blank, "But that court in Greece had to ruin it for me.
"Do you think if I wrote them a nice letter they would sue me after all?" she asked plaintively.
Activist Nicole Watson of Springfield, IL, agreed with the sentiment. "We thought it would be a fun thing. A bunch of loons from Greece coming over here and trying to redefine the English language. We'd all get together and throw a little party, and keep chanting slogans, and see if we could make one of them get their blood pressure so high that the blood would come out of their nose. That's the best part, really. But seriously? Even the Focus on the Family hasn't tried to legislate anything quite that dumb. It would be like lemon farmers trying to outlaw us referring to bad cars as lemons."
"Does anybody still refer to things as lemons?" she asked afterwards, "I don't. Strange."
"The potential entertainment value of this lawsuit was off the charts," said Lucinda Brock, a lawyer with the American Center for Legal Hilarity. "Normally you only get values like that for things like the OJ trial. But this was almost all light-hearted fun instead of racially-charged seriousness. We estimate that the dividends of that trial alone could have increased American happiness by almost twenty megaChaplins.
"Unfortunately, we won't be able to find out now. Pity. Oh well. Somebody's always suing their neighbor for growing beets that look like them or something."
Although widely discounted as frivolous by the rest of the world, the island of Lesbos claims that they have experienced many problems with the naming confusion.
"No end of trouble," said a man with the Lesbian Tourism and Marketing Agency, whose name was far too difficult to spell, "We just can't get away from it. I mean, we've tried everything we could think of. We tried a marketing campaign centered around the concept of a 'Lesbian Paradise'. That didn't work. Then there was that whole hotline thing - we thought that if people could talk to ordinary citizens, they would discover what was so great about Lesbos. We called it 'Talk to a Real, Live, Lesbian'. That was just a disaster. Then we tried putting out posters with two attractive women kissing, saying 'This is not Lesbos'. That didn't go over so well either."
Upon reflection, he added, "Strangely enough, when we took the 'not' out of that poster, our tourism figures among men jumped. Which is odd, considering that if the women really are lesbians - I mean other lesbians, not Lesbian lesbians, then they aren't going to get any anyway. But oh well, tourist figures are up, so who am I to complain?"
"It's just confusing," said a college student who was too embarrassed to be named. "I arrived in the US for college, and I was so thrilled to find out that there was a Lesbian Support Group. Then I walked into the room in the first week, and it was filled with women. It took me a moment to realize what I had done wrong."
He cradled his head in his hands, "I will never, ever live that down."
Interviews with his friends confirmed that he will never, ever live that down.
No conclusion has been reached in a similar lawsuit, lodged by lesbian activists not resident in Lesbos, on behalf of millions of lesbians on Earth, demanding that the outnumbered inhabitants of the island of Lesbos "get their own damn name".
This just in:
Athens, Greece - A court decision by a Greek court this week, ruling in favor of the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, may force thousands of Lesbians - homosexual women - to find something to do other than laugh at a small group of Lesbians - inhabitants of the island of Lesbos. The suit, lodged by a small group of Lesbos inhabitants, intended to restrict the usage of the word Lesbian, and prevent it from referring to homosexual women. Had the suit succeeded in Greece, it was originally intended to serve as the foundation for an international campaign to redefine the word Lesbian everywhere so that it only referred to the inhabitants of Lesbos.
Their defeat in this early court case will force thousands, perhaps hundred of thousands of Lesbians to abandon long term plans to entertain themselves by laughing at people attempting to ban the word Lesbian.
"It really ruins my chances," said Maria Smith, of Manhattan, NY, a prominent lesbian who is not from Lesbos. "I thought I had a good chance at being the first American sued by some guys from that island in Greece over referring to myself as a Lesbian. I had a good following, a good setup, some local prominence, even got the local ACLU rep on speed-dial. I wanted to be the test case. Have you ever been a test case? I thought I might be able to get all the way to the Supreme Court."
She looked sadly at the piles of legal documents required for a major court case, all now tragically blank, "But that court in Greece had to ruin it for me.
"Do you think if I wrote them a nice letter they would sue me after all?" she asked plaintively.
Activist Nicole Watson of Springfield, IL, agreed with the sentiment. "We thought it would be a fun thing. A bunch of loons from Greece coming over here and trying to redefine the English language. We'd all get together and throw a little party, and keep chanting slogans, and see if we could make one of them get their blood pressure so high that the blood would come out of their nose. That's the best part, really. But seriously? Even the Focus on the Family hasn't tried to legislate anything quite that dumb. It would be like lemon farmers trying to outlaw us referring to bad cars as lemons."
"Does anybody still refer to things as lemons?" she asked afterwards, "I don't. Strange."
"The potential entertainment value of this lawsuit was off the charts," said Lucinda Brock, a lawyer with the American Center for Legal Hilarity. "Normally you only get values like that for things like the OJ trial. But this was almost all light-hearted fun instead of racially-charged seriousness. We estimate that the dividends of that trial alone could have increased American happiness by almost twenty megaChaplins.
"Unfortunately, we won't be able to find out now. Pity. Oh well. Somebody's always suing their neighbor for growing beets that look like them or something."
Although widely discounted as frivolous by the rest of the world, the island of Lesbos claims that they have experienced many problems with the naming confusion.
"No end of trouble," said a man with the Lesbian Tourism and Marketing Agency, whose name was far too difficult to spell, "We just can't get away from it. I mean, we've tried everything we could think of. We tried a marketing campaign centered around the concept of a 'Lesbian Paradise'. That didn't work. Then there was that whole hotline thing - we thought that if people could talk to ordinary citizens, they would discover what was so great about Lesbos. We called it 'Talk to a Real, Live, Lesbian'. That was just a disaster. Then we tried putting out posters with two attractive women kissing, saying 'This is not Lesbos'. That didn't go over so well either."
Upon reflection, he added, "Strangely enough, when we took the 'not' out of that poster, our tourism figures among men jumped. Which is odd, considering that if the women really are lesbians - I mean other lesbians, not Lesbian lesbians, then they aren't going to get any anyway. But oh well, tourist figures are up, so who am I to complain?"
"It's just confusing," said a college student who was too embarrassed to be named. "I arrived in the US for college, and I was so thrilled to find out that there was a Lesbian Support Group. Then I walked into the room in the first week, and it was filled with women. It took me a moment to realize what I had done wrong."
He cradled his head in his hands, "I will never, ever live that down."
Interviews with his friends confirmed that he will never, ever live that down.
No conclusion has been reached in a similar lawsuit, lodged by lesbian activists not resident in Lesbos, on behalf of millions of lesbians on Earth, demanding that the outnumbered inhabitants of the island of Lesbos "get their own damn name".