I was never much of a Boyzone fan. Even so, the recent, and very sudden, death of Boyzone star Stephen Gately came as a shock. I vividly recall the time he came out as being gay 10 years ago. Perhaps he was the first ‘boy band’ or pop star to actually admit he was gay. Admittedly, the newspapers were going to out him anyway, but he chose to fight them by giving his side of the story, rather than desperately trying to cling on to the façade of boy-band normality – toned bodies and screaming teenage girls.
He could have tried going to the courts for a gagging order, but he took the right path and became even more of a hero to his fans – some of them probably struggling with their own sexuality – for doing so.
The nature of his death was certainly unusual. It’s not all that normal for a 33-year-old to just go to bed one evening and die. However, the initial results from the post mortem don’t indicate anything more unusual than a big night out and a joint or two being smoked. He had liquid on the lungs. That could easily have been from vomit during his sleep, possibly as a result of drinking too much, but none of us really know what happened until further information is released. It’s clear that there was no drugs binge or suicide though – it looks like a tragic accident.
Yet, take a look at what Jan Moir has been writing about Gately in the Daily Mail. What a filthy, disgusting, degraded piece of pond life she must be to write such an article in a national newspaper that just spills over with hatred and intolerance. She talks of ‘Robbie, Amy, Kate, Whitney, Britney’ as stars we should expect to go next – what kind of journalism is that?
Why does she make the assumption that people who live a different life to her all end up suffering an early death?
Why does she not accept that even stars can sometimes suffer fatal accidents or mishaps?
Why does she allude to Gately’s homosexuality as a fatal flaw that caused his death?
Why does she openly question the validity of civil unions, just because of Gately’s death and the recent suicide of Kevin McGee?
The Daily Mail is generally known as the Hate Mail where I come from. It’s a nasty paper read by nasty people who despise freedom, liberty, equality, and the values of the majority of people who live in the UK. Jan Moir once again demonstrates how the paper has earned this reputation, but it appears to me that she has gone too far this time. If the financial supporters of the paper – the advertisers like Marks and Spencer – are now asking for their adverts to be moved away from her page then surely it’s time for the editor to do something?
Sack her. Let her enjoy a holiday from hate.
No comments:
Post a Comment