The birthplace of western homo-erotica cuts a gay kiss from TV, writes Judith Bruhn.

The Warren Cup, ancient homoerotica (Photo by nikoretro under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence)

The Greek state television NET edited out a gay kiss during the Greek premier airing of the British period drama Downton Abbey. The Greeks quickly took to social networking sites such as Twitter to complain about NET’s move with the opposition party accusing the channel of succumbing to political and religious pressure. The channel defended its decision as in line with parental guidelines.

It is almost ironic to think that the birthplace of homoerotic art and literature in the west (whose island Lesbos gives the origin to the word ‘lesbian’) would find a kiss between two fully dressed men too obscene for a 10:05pm showing and, in general, something more obscene than a kiss between a man and woman.

This author asks: Are you serious?

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