Epress.am News from Armenia
Greek youngsters are getting fed up that a male-female kiss in public is accepted in society, but a same-sex kiss is not. And one Athens group, the recently-formed Colour Youth, aims to do something about it – on St. Valentine’s Day.
“On Monday, Feb. 14th, the hetero-normal St. Valentine’s Day, we defend our kisses in public, in heart of central Athens,” the youth group said in a statement today, reports UK Gay News.
“For a lot of us youth with sexual orientation that differs from society’s accepted norm, just the idea of a kiss in daylight terrifies us. Our feelings of guilt regarding this totally human act is something that we want to change.
“The between mother and child, between father and gay son, our first teenage kiss, the kiss goodnight, the comforting kiss between friends are just some of the kinds of kisses we exchange every day. Our kisses express passion, love, tenderness, and friendship. For us, every kiss deserves respect.”
The whole idea follows some self-censorship of same-sex kisses in music videos by two television stations, MTV Greece and MAD TV, explained Stefanos Agelastos, an organizer of Athens Pride and a founder of Colour Youth.
He said that the kisses in Katy Perry’s Firework and Pink’s Raise Your Glass had prompted Colour Youth to produce their own video attacking the censorship. [The video is in Greek. but English subtitles are available by clicking the “CC” button on the embedded player.]
The censorship, Agelastos told UK Gay News, was “a no-reason-discrimination from the part of the TV channels”.
“Six years ago, the National Broadcasting Council fined a channel for broadcasting a gay kiss on TV,” he explained. “But Council of State cancelled the fine, in what was seen as a unique human rights point of view.”
The St Valentine’s Day Kiss-In is at 8pm on Ermou Street, Syntagma Square, Athens. Everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, is welcome to join the youth of Athens and other Greek LGBT organizations.