Hate Crime

A venomous debate has begun to rage following the publication of an article in the Daily Mail, shortly before his funeral, concerning the death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death--.html


The article, written by "journalist" (or hate-filled bigot, as it appears) Jan Moir, basically implies that his death was not, as the coroner stated, from natural causes but was in some way associated with his lifestyle, most notably his gay sexuality. It has the dubious privilege of being one of the nastiest, most spiteful pieces of unadulterated garbage I have ever read. It also holds the record for stimulating the most ever complaints about an article to the Press Complaints Commission. There is a response from Guardian writer and all round champion of reason Charlie Brooker, which says it better than I ever could here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir

I am far from being a Boyzone fan. I am a self confessed Guardian reader and loathe the Daily Maul with a vengeance, so I can hardly claim to be objective, but it is hard not to resent the proliferation of this kind of prejudice in a national publication, widely read (2nd biggest circulation) by a lot of easily influenced, if well intentioned, folk. That includes my mother-in-law, who really should know better, and my mother, who probably wishes she'd written the piece.

Ironically, this coincides with a great deal of hand-wringing over the appearance of the BNP leader on this week's Question Time and Carter Ruck's attempt last week to prevent the publication of a Parliamentary question, happily ignored by Private Eye and numerous inhabitants of Twitterdom.

Normally I'm a big ole liberal and think "publish and be damned". In this case, though, I'm inclined to hope that the damnation will indeed occur and that Ms. Moir spends an eternity on a spit, being forced to listen to looped Boyzone. I'm very unhappy about the BNP appearance too, but just hope the other panellists are able to expose Mr Griffin for the loathsome creature he surely is.