'This is a Good Decision for Lesbians Everywhere'

And here all this time you thought only American courts wasted their time on such frivolity.

A Greek court has dismissed a request by residents of the Aegean island of Lesbos to ban the use of the word lesbian to describe gay women, according to a court ruling made public on Tuesday.

Three residents of Lesbos, the birthplace of the ancient Greek poetess Sappho whose love poems inspired the term lesbian, brought a case last month arguing the use of the term in reference to gay women insulted their identity.

In a July 18 decision, the Athens court said the word did not define the identity of the residents of the island, and so it could be validly used by gay groups in Greece and abroad.

The ruling ordered the plaintiffs to pay court expenses of 230 euros ($366.2).

"This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere," Vassilis Chirdaris, lawyer for the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, told Reuters. "A court in Athens could not stop people around the world from using it. It was ridiculous."

No kidding.

Battle of the Lesbians

Now it's personal.

RESIDENTS of the Greek island synonymous with the love verses of an ancient woman poet have launched a legal case against a gay group insisting that they are the real Lesbians.

Two inhabitants of the island of Lesbos along with a member of a nationalist pagan association today launched a legal case to ban the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union (OLKE) from bearing the name "lesbian".

Lesbos was the home of the poet Sappho, who expressed her love of other women in lyric verses written in the early sixth century BC.

Lesbos residents now suffer "psychological and moral rape" from the "seizure" of their island's name by gays, said the activist Dimitris Lambrou, in a text titled The Misfortune of Being Lesbian, published on his website.

Lambrou believes the case will be judged in Athens in June.

"This affair is totally ridiculous," said OLKE spokeswoman Evangelia Vlami. "But if we are summoned by the courts, we will be heard."