Der Spiegel presents: The Lesbian Man

[TheMightyFavog]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,565354,00.html

Dimitris Lambrou is a proud Lesbian, who thinks "lesbians" around the world should quit using the name of his home island as a label for their sexual orientation. His lawsuit in an Athens court has made him famous, not just in Greece.

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Lambrou, 69 and married, is on a mission. His core thesis, in abbreviated form, goes like this: The Christianization of Europe was not the beginning, but the end of Europe's greatness. For Lambrou, ancient Greece represented the height of European civilization.

It's a complicated mission. A full 98 percent of Greeks are Greek Orthodox, and Lambrou's mission seems more or less irrelevant to them. O Davlos has a circulation of about 5,000 copies, and other publications rarely acknowledge Lambrou at all.

All that changed on April 10, when Lambrou filed a petition for a temporary injunction in an Athens court. He wanted to keep OLKE, Greece's gay and lesbian association, from continuing to use the word "lesbian." Lambrou himself was born on the island of Lesbos, the home of the poet Sappho, classical muse of all women who love women. Lambrou happens to love his native Lesbos. OLKE, he insists, has stolen the word "lesbian." Women from Lesbos are constantly confused with lesbian women, says Lambrou, who believes real Lesbians can only exist on Lesbos.