Athens comes over all queer

2003-11-14 18:25

Athens - Members of Greece's low-profile gay community were expected to kiss in public in front of Greece's media watchdog on Friday evening to protest against a €100 000 fine imposed on a local television station for showing a male couple kissing.

The kiss will be "brief", said Grigoris Valianatos, a well-known journalist and activist who appeared on Thursday on television to urge homosexuals to attend the happening.

However, he said he did not know how many couples would show up at the doorstep of the National Audiovisual Council, Greece's media watchdog.

"We'll intervene only if we are ordered to by the prosecutors' office," said a senior Greek police official. "There's no question of banning it in advance," the source added.

In the past, prosecutors have frequently invoked a law on protection of "public decency" to interrupt events with sexual manifestations or connotations, such as topless dances on bars or performances by people posing barely clothed in a public square.

The public gay-kissing event is a first in Greece.

"There was no need to do something like that so far," said Valianatos.

But on Wednesday, the media watchdog levelled a €100 000-euro (about R790 000) fine on private television station Mega, Greece's second-biggest channel, for showing two young men kissing in a popular late-night series, Close your eyes.

The council's president, Ioannis Laskaridis, reportedly said: "(Kissing men) is not a usual phenomenon. It is a particularity outside life's reproductive process."

According to media observers, it was the first time that men were broadcast kissing in a popular Greek show.

No prominent Greek has ever gone public with his (or her) homosexuality, which is not banned under Greek law. Gay bars do exist in major Greek cities.

"We hope there will be as many of us as possible. After all, our kisses are officially worth €100 000 now," said Valianatos, who also defends prostitutes' rights.

- SAPA