I have a billion things to do – not least get up at 5am tomorrow morning but I cannot sleep until I’ve vented a little of my rage at the woman who has caused such hurt and offence to the family of Stephen Gately.
I loathe the Daily Mail and I’m regularly appalled that my parents continue to read it but it’s a free country and people should be allowed to do what they want. However, when a ‘journalist’ (and I deliberately bracket that word) writes an ‘article’ only a few days after the death of a charming young man who tragically died of a heart failure aged 33 – in which she insults his grieving mother, smears the circumstances of his untimely death and makes a ludicrous but nonetheless disgusting link between his death and his marriage – then voices (and my voice especially) should be raised.
The fact is that Jan Moir is a nasty homophobe. She believes that gay people’s lifestyles explain tragic deaths like Gately’s. She makes the vile assumption that his marriage to another man somehow led to his death – and what’s worse that all civil partnerships cause similar tragic ends.
I urge you to read the copy of the article (please do not give the Mail any more hits on their site) and then consider making a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission on the basis that she breaches clause 1,5 and 12 of its code of practice.
Charlie Brooker writes a fine piece on it in the Guardian and this is a spirited dissection of the work.
One of the things that most annoys me in the commentaries around this affair is the tacit criticism of Gately and his husband possibily having sex with another man. It continually endorses the idea that men going on holiday and having sex is somehow ‘suspicious’ or ‘not so innocent’. Since when did human beings drinking and having sex on holiday become so unnatural? There is nothing unnatural about sex. Period. And people who don’t grasp that fundamental point are missing the whole point.
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