![Jan-Moir-and-Stephen-Gate-001[1]](https://queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com/2009/10/Jan-Moir-and-Stephen-Gate-0011-320x192.jpg "Jan-Moir-and-Stephen-Gate-001[1]")
Don’t blame yourself if you’ve never heard of Jan Moir. We hadn’t until today, either. But then Jan penned a Daily Mail column about the mysterious death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately. And according to those blowing up Twitter about it, she said some very mean things about the homosexual lifestyle.
This is a snapshot of Twitter taken just moments ago:
Why’s everyone so upset? Something about, uh, the way she phrased things:
Even before the post-mortem and toxicology reports were released by the Spanish authorities, the Gatelys’ lawyer reiterated that they believed his sudden death was due to natural causes.
But, hang on a minute. Something is terribly wrong with the way this incident has been shaped and spun into nothing more than an unfortunate mishap on a holiday weekend, like a broken teacup in the rented cottage.
Consider the way it has been largely reported, as if Gately had gently keeled over at the age of 90 in the grounds of the Bide-a-Wee rest home while hoeing the sweet pea patch.
The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.
Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.
And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy.
After a night of clubbing, Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment. It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta with 25-year-old Georgi Dochev was not what was on the cards.
Cowles and Dochev went to the bedroom together while Stephen remained alone in the living room.
What happened before they parted is known only to the two men still alive. What happened afterwards is anyone’s guess.
A post-mortem revealed Stephen died from acute pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on his lungs.
Gately’s family have always maintained that drugs were not involved in the singer’s death, but it has just been revealed that he at least smoked cannabis on the night he died.
Nevertheless, his mother is still insisting that her son died from a previously undetected heart condition that has plagued the family.
Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.
Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.
Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.
It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death.
As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine.
The Twitter (and Facebook) kids are so upset, they’re filing notifications with Britain’s Press Complaints Commission and circulating the contact information of the Mail‘s advertisers. It’s unclear whether the Mail will issue an apology, but the newspaper is undoubtedly paying attention; it already changed Moir’s headline from “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death” to “A strange, lonely and troubling death . . .”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Steff
The Daily Mail’s advertisers have had their ads pulled from the article in question, and the website of the UK’s Press Complaints Commission has crashed.
Victory for the braying mob!
scottie
Jan Moir is, and always has been, a vile, frigid bitch. I hope she gets what’s coming to her … it’s high time she did.
Andrew W
Unfortunately comedian Peter Serafinowicz has screwed up the Twitter roust of Jan Moir by starting the #thedailymailisgay hash tag. I’m sure he had the best of intentions, but insulting something by calling it ‘gay’ is not going to help us one bit, and there’s no way a similar hash tag would have been created if the Daily Mail had said something racist or misogynist.
Steff
Actually if you look at Sarafinowicz’s original post, it’s kinda more a joke about homophobia stemming from a fear about one’s own sexuality… but yeah, it was still a bit stupid, because it could easily mean something else.
Andrew W
When he follows up with a re-tweet about how the Daily Mail can be rolled up to look like a penis, it kind of dilutes his original point. I get what he was trying to do, but it’s a horrible message, ‘we hate the Daily Mail, so let’s accuse the Daily Mail of being gay’. And now A-gays like Stephen Fry and Derren Brown are re-tweeting it, and honestly it just makes me want to give up in despair.
Steff
Yeah… this is true. That’s just comedians for you. 😛
dellisonly
Honestly? Until the final few paragraphs it’s tame. She is just asking questions. Even her disapproval seems tame. The whole thing seemed suspicious as did the other death she mentioned. I guess I don’t understand.
tarxien
The sheer ignorance (let alone vileness) of this woman is astonishing. Surely journalists are supposed to do research before writing?
Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) is a well recognized medical condition. Something like 100 young adults die of it in the UK annually. It is related to an often undiagnosed congenital heart abnormality and is familial.
I have personal experience – my physically healthy, non-smoking, non-drinking, heterosexual, happily married uncle died of this condition aged 38.
Even for a right-wing rag like the Daily Mail this article hits a new low.
Robert, NYC
If Gately hadn’t been gay, this bitch wouldn’t be saying the things she has said and the Daily Mail wouldn’t be sensationalizing it either. Typical yellow journalism. Moir isn’t fit to be deemed a journalist, more a fish wife gossiper.
Cinci Chris
This indicates to me how much more liberal Europe truly is. This article seems relatively tame by American standards. I could find you plenty of articles that are far more scathingly insulting from American conservative journalists,yet haven’t generated near as much buzz.
Steff
Even better is Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker’s utter put-down:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir
🙂
galefan2004
Seriously, are we really that heart on our sleeves that we need to get but hurt over these minute comments. Worse than this is said every day by pundits. I think we got to a point where everything is offensive. The problem with getting up in arms every time anything is said we don’t agree with (no matter how minute it is) is that the argument always turns to free speech not the issue at hand.
Freddie
What a cunt! I hope she gets sudden death-by-Lorrie pronto!
tarxien
It’s just been reported on the UK national news that the Press Complaints Commission has received an unprecedented number of complaints about the Jan Moir article and all the advertising has been pulled from the site.
jarvisbearcub
As an American living abroad I can tell you that they are very conscious of political correctness over here. Of course, gay people have way more rights, too.
In this article, she brings up this death and the death of matt lucas’ partner to imply a pattern that gay relationships are about drugs, promiscuity and murder. That’s what’s so offensive.
tavdy79
NEWSARSE (think The Onion parodying BBC News) has done a great piece on the death or Moir’s career.
It’s quite feasible that Paul Dacre, the Daily Mail’s editor, could find his own head sharing the platter with Jan Moir’s – as the paper’s editor, he’s ultimately responsible for anything that the paper publishes, and the blood-baying has already begun.
Dellisonly – the Daily Mail’s nick-name in the UK is “the Hate Mail”, mainly because of its well-deserved reputation as a bastion of Middle-English mean-spiritedness. “Daily Mail Readers” are an unfortunate but all-too-frequently-accurate stereotype: small-minded, self absorbed curtain-twitchers. Think Hyacinth Bucket, with occasional forays into Sally Kern.
Tommy
It’s a very outrageous and shocking article. I find it interesting how some Europeans like to say they are more advanced and liberal than us backwards Americans but the British press is full of sexist and homophobic stuff that would never be written in a regular widely distributed paper in the U.S.
Yes, there are conservatives in the U.S who write stuff like this but those article would be in some conservative publication, not in some widely distributed newspaper.
Even when conservatives say they are against gay marriage in mainstream papers, they do try to make it seem like they aren’t bigots, even though they really are.
This lady obviously has no shame.
Gossip Girl
Here’s a mystery worthy of an Agatha Christie which I’m going to write. What do you think of my synopsis?
A 33 year old star dies a mysterious death alone in the living room while his husband shags the tush of a Bulgarian pimp next door. Husband doesn’t give a toss about said partner until pimp reports him dead. Tears etc. and big funeral. Such a lovely lad. Oh, and the husband gets the star’s royalties for life. Gay community defends their ‘open relationship’ as being the same as straights, that’s why we wanted gay marriage after all, isn’t it? One sad bastard dead and another laughing all the way to the bank. And the pimp makes some bucks off the press for selling his story. Do you like it?
jason
Jan Moir is correct. She’s pointing to the sleaze and promiscuity of some gay couples. She’s not saying that ALL gay couples are like this but, rather, that there’s a lot of hypocrisy within some of these relationships.
A lot of gay men have become hedonism addicts, I’m afraid. Gay men are living within a scene built on a sex act. Porn, drugs…they’ve all become integral aspects of the marketing of the word “gay”.
I’m going to write a letter of support to Jan Moir.
tarxien
Well, just this week in the UK papers – banker (who was having an affair) strangles wife (who was also having affairs with 2 men; another man stabbed his wife 30 times with several different knives in front of their children, because she wanted to leave him: another man killed his two young children (aged three and one) in order to punish his wife for not paying enough attention to him.
Yet nothing from Jan Moir on how degraded and revoltingly violent heterosexual marriage can become?? Where are you Jan? There must be a few articles here surely?
tavdy79
For those with a bitchy streak, this is why pissing off the gays is a bad idea. We have computers, and we now how to use them.
____
Tommy, while the British press may be full of sexist and homophobic stuff the US press wouldn’t dare publish, the reverse is true of the big TV news companies. With a few exceptions (the Guardian, the Times) British newspapers have long had a reputation for the kind of gutter journalism which in the US is more normally associated with people like Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh and then Daily Mail are both tolerated by those on the receiving end of his bigotry, for the most part at least.
If you need proof that western Europeans are more liberal than Americans, just look at the figures for public support for same sex marriage. Support for same sex marriage was at 54% and rising in the EU15 states prior to the 2004 enlargement. It now ranges from 52% (CZ, DE) to 82% (NL) with most western states around 60% to 70%. In the USA support is at 39%.
____
Tarxien – you missed off the two 17 year old girls arrested for the murder of a 62 year old gay man in Trafalgar Square. What were their parents doing, bringing up their daughters to become such violent young women?
jason
Tarxien,
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Yes, hetero couples can act in very sleazy ways. But that doesn’t justify gay couples doing the same.
In any case, Jan Moir is hardly going to mention a hetero couple who aren’t well known in the media. Stephen and his spouse were a well known gay couple, therefore it’s entirely expected that Jan would make a commentary.
I didn’t really see anything homophobic in Jan’s article. She’s pointing to the hypocrisy of those who would sugar-coat our gay relationships.
rhydderch
I really don’t see the problem with Jan Moir. I read her article and feel that she raises excellent questions. It’s very strange for a perfectly healthy fit 33 y/o to drop dead and call it natural causes. Especially since he’s “husband” was screwing someone else in the next room. My guess is an overdose or years of coke abuse.
Gossip Girl
Right on Jason.
It’s not for anyone to comment on Gately and Cowles relationship, though I think a lot of us married gays will question why get married if all you want to do is fuck around. He might, or not, have been screwing while his partner died, but that there seems to be the cover up going on: Cowles found him, not the Bulgarian pimp, Cowles and Gately were on the sofa together, not in bed, etc etc.
Why fight for gay marriage when all that’s really means is a legal right to secure property to your chosen partner once the threesome goes wrong.
Jan Muir was right to question these celeb gay lifestyles. As Obama would say, with rights come responsibilities. It time married gay men kept their dicks in their pants.
tavdy79
IMO it’s time the Blue Rinse Brigade stopped poking their noses into other people’s private lives.
jason
Gay people have the right to engage in as much sexual activity as they wish. However, once you do that, there’s the issue of responsibility. Responsibility and freedom go hand in hand.
You can’t expect to act like rabbits in heat and then cry foul when the media calls you on it.
bubbs
Jan Moir is an idiot.
gollygeegaygoy
if the moir mouth had paused from gorging, and had requested some research, like a professional writer, maybe she would have found the simple answers to her unanswered questions…about the real nature of mr gatelys death. and his inherited pulmonary oedema. her article and defence of it are the real sleaze, splattering out like diarrhoea and missing the bowl completely. and just before this young man is buried. i only hope she soon gets a taste of her own poison.
Somewhere under 50
I have lurked on queerty for a long time but this is just nasty. What two guys who are married do in there relationship no matter how famous they are is nobodies business but theirs. What you think marriage is suppose to mean is not important… there is no right way to have a marriage despite what some people here and elsewhere say. Whatever two people agree works for them in their marriage or civil partnership is all that matters. There is no one size fits all in life or everybody would be straight with two point five children and a white picket fence point blank. People deriding open relationships here are free to have their opinion but this sanctimonious drivel people are posting trash talking a dead guy and his husband has got to stop. Please lets give some respect to the dead and for all accounts a loving partner in his time of loss. I am sure Mr Cowles is having a rough enough time losing his partner without having to listen to the bitchiness of some ‘queens’ gay and straight online and in the news.
SoylentDiva
It’s the Daily Mail. There are no “journalists” there nor is anything in it to be taken seriously. Other than the date (and even that should be verified) you can’t trust a single thing they print. Using that rag as lining for a bird cage would be giving it too much status.
tinkerbell
Flash pulmonary edema is seldom caused by illicit drug use alone. Sounds more like a mitral valve defect or a coarcted aorta or perhaps a pulmonary artery defect to me. On face value, with just scant clinical or lab evidence, it does not seem to me that this guy’s death was a simple overdose.
nick
The Daily Mail is basically just Fox News in print.
Its good their finally feeling some heat over what they think they can get away with.
JustForKicks
I honestly have to say that I don’t find Jan’s piece an example of homophobia at all. The circumstances surrounding Stephen Gately’s death are suspicious, even if it’s discovered that the cause of death was not. All they have commented was that his death was caused by ‘fluid on the lungs’ – without an extra tagline explaining what this means to the laypeople then there will be conspiracy theories being banded about. I don’t know what causes ‘fluid on the lungs’ and in the absence of a clinical comment about the ‘natural’ causes of this description then I can come to my own conclusions, whatever they may be.
And I think that if Stephen hadn’t been openly gay then the criticisms about his lifestyle would still be valid: taking drugs, drinking heavily and then inviting a complete stranger to your home would be considered loose behaviour if the person in question were gay or not.
This is all fuss about nothing, and I bet the Daily Mail is appreciative of the publicity..
Darrien
I can only assume that Gossip Girl and Jason are in America because they think gay equality has something to do with public morality. It doesn’t. There’s no morals clause in equal treatment and until such a time as the majority of Americans and American gays understand that, there won’t be lgbt equality in the US.
Whatever Gately and his partner did in bed – so long as it was consensual – is their affair and no-one elses. And just for the record, I know many gays in civil partnerships who make a difference between emotional monogamy and sexual monogamy, so I don’t find the idea of a threesome particularly shocking.
I find it far more shocking that any gay person in their right mind would support Moir. She’s ignored all the facts publicly available (ie that he died of natural causes) and instead called Gately’s mother a liar and insulted the professionalism of the coroner. And why has she done it? Merely to mount an attack on the gay men of Britain and Ireland.
As Moir is someone who trades in hatred and hyperbolic outrage, it’s impossible to describe the sheer joy of watching the public skewer her with her own poisonous weapons.
Steff
“I really don’t see the problem with Jan Moir. I read her article and feel that she raises excellent questions. It’s very strange for a perfectly healthy fit 33 y/o to drop dead and call it natural causes. Especially since he’s “husband” was screwing someone else in the next room. My guess is an overdose or years of coke abuse.”
That is exactly the kind of ridiculous conjecture that fuels articles like Jan Moir’s. Obviously Sudden Adult Death Syndrome is not on your radar.
tarxien
@JustForKicks
Sudden death in apparently healthy young adults happens. It happens enough for there to be currently a campaign in Britain encouraging people to be screened for underlying heart defects. It is often hereditary. In my professional capacity I have seen several cases, including, distressingly a 14 year old girl, bought in from school after collapsing during games.
Statistically the overwhelming majority of victims will be heterosexual. There is no discussion as to whether their ‘lifestyle’ contributed to their unexpected death. Just sympathy for their grieving family and friends.
The postmortem on Stephen found no evidence of drugs or alcohol contributing to his death, and he was known to be someone who rarely drank alcohol. He did not ‘choke on his own vomit’ as some lurid reports claimed. He died of sudden pulmonary oedema (fluid on the lungs) caused most likely by an electrical abnormality in the heart which caused a fatal arrhythmia.
Where he was sleeping, who with, what he did in the hours leading to his sudden death are irrelevant.
While Stephen’s family, friends and fans are reeling from this tragedy, Jan Moir decided to write an article implying that he could not have died of natural causes, that it must be related to his ‘sleazy’ gay lifestyle, and that same sex marriages in general are likely to lead to this sort of outcome. This on the basis of two completely unrelated examples, presumably straight people never commit suicide when relationships break down, or die unexpectedly of heart problems??.
If that isn’t homophobia I don’t know what is
sebastien
@ GOSSIP GIRL.
You should be ashamed of what you just wrote and this comment should be erased from Queerty.
“One sad bastard dead and another laughing all the way to the bank”..
How disgusting!….How pathetic of you…
You got no idea what happened that night.
You got no idea how much Andy Cowles is in pain and ravaged by guilt and the loss of the love of his life.
How fucking dare you treating Stephen Gately of “One Sad Bastard”.
You make me sick .
Stephen Gately was a beautiful person and a decent human being and he and andy loved each other. they didn’t commit any crime, they didn’t hurt anyone, they had the same life and needs as everybody else . they were not living their life differently that anyone else and it might come as a shock to you, but nobody laughs “all their way to the bank” today.
Have some manners, have some respect !
How any of us , gays, can judge the life and the death of Stephen Gately? Judge their attachment for each other?
Stephen was a human being,and an extraordinary one. Nothing more , nothing less…
Tallskin
My gods, there’s a lot of internalised, self hating, homophobia being expressed in these comments – internalised self hate that is being outwardly expressed onto a disapproval of this poor dead kid.
And for those of you who are straight and have come onto this site to make a nasty comment, well FUCK OFF.
Robert, NYC
Darrien, I totally agree. Moir seems to forget that far more straights engage in three-ways, commit adultery, swap wives, husbands than we could possibly imagine, but you’ll never hear her and right wing religious psychos denigrate or demean that, especially when it comes to equality, in particular marriage equality. Look what happened in America, two republican (politicians) John Ensign and Mark Sanford, both married with children, both religious, both banning marriage equality, in fact neither has voted for any LGBT legislation in their lives, both holding up the sanctity of marriage and a so called “christian” belief system and doing the opposite of what they preach. Nothing but sheer hypocrisy and bigotry of the worst kind.
If Moir were decent and respectful, she wouldn’t make allegations of this kind but working for that rag the Daily Mail, what can one expect? Nothing more than yellow gutter journalism, not even journalism in my view. Lets not delude ourselves, this is nothing more than homophobia. If people have nothing good to say about anyone who has died, say nothing, but they should look in the mirror before they start speculating about anything. She’s a disgusting piece of work. I wonder how she’d feel if it were her son or daughter, heaven forbid. Can you imagine how this young man’s parents feel and what they’re going through? Clearly Moir and the Daily Mail do not.
Robert, NYC
Tarxien, exactly. Isn’t it revealing why people like Moir et al never bring up a straight person’s sexual orientation, let alone demean it by vicious comments unlike this poor young man’s, just because they’re married to someone of the opposite sex. We never hear….”oh this straight man or woman committed adultery”, or something else to that effect do we? This IS homophobia, no question about it. Moir can rant all she wants about supporting civil partnerships, that doesn’t make her a non-homophobe. There are many moderate republicans in the U.S. who don’t want gays to marry but don’t have a problem with civil unions (partnerships), the same mindset of most labour and tory politicians alike, and some in our community construe that as not being homophobic. How gullible is that?
sebastien
I am watching stephen’s funeral right now on TV and I am crying my eyes out .
RIP Stephen.
MacPsych
Criticism of Stephen Gately’s behaviour – whether from Jan Moir or other commenters on this site – is pointless as none of us were there on the night he died. We don’t know what happened. Moir took this blank page and filled it with vitriol, spite and hatred. It’s nothing more than another piece of Daily Mail journa-vomit. She would not have attempted to link his sexuality to his death if he had been a straight man. There’s the homophobia right there.
People in the UK, Ireland and the rest of Europe stood up and protested against this piece of filth because Stephen was a well-liked performer and Moir’s attack took place before he had even been buried. Her hate-filled diatribe was nothing but rumour, supposition and prejudice, masquerading as journalism… like much of the Daily Mail’s content.
Sadly, the majority of people who protested against Moir and her article aren’t likely to be existing Daily Mail readers, so it’s unclear if this will have any impact on sales, direct or through advertising space.
jason
I think Jan’s point is that the media has avoided questioning the involvement of the third party in this tragic death. Her point is that the media is sugar-coating the death and avoiding discussion of the possible role the third party may have played in this.
Steff
To be fair, the headline on the article here at Queerty is pretty misleading.
The furore isn’t anything to do with her calling the death suspicious but rather the general tone of the article; the sniping comments and the suggestion that being gay automatically means your lungs fill with fluid and your marriage collapses.
More lazy writing here at Queerty means, as ever, that the comments are filled with crap which has nothing to do with the story at hand.
sebastien
@ jason. No the point of this article is drag the name of Stephen gately in the mud. to say that gays , at the end of the day, deserve what they get because they don’t live the way the “good people” live. She says that with that life , he deserved what he got. her point is , as well , “Don’t ask to wed if you can’t keep it in your pants, you disgusting perverts”. Because, of course, we know for a fact that every married straight persons are faithful and never cheat or engage a threesome.They ‘re all pure and clean , in mind and body.
tarxien
@Jason
The autopsy and police investigation have ruled out murder, suicide, alcohol, drugs as cause of death and clearly stated it was due to natural causes. Who is speculating that the ‘third party’ had anything to do with it, apart from you and Jan Moir maybe?
Niblet
I am a senior citizen and as such people may think I am old fashioned in my views, however no so I love Boyzone and Westlife and other modern groups and singers and think this Jan Moir is a lowlife gutter press person who is so disrespectful to this young man taken to young and to his family and friends. How the hell would she know what happened and their and many other peoples private life are their own. I remember when Johnny Mathis came out and my late husband who had always admired him as a great artist did not feel the same anymore but as I pointed out to him what did his private life have to do with his talent that was still the same, sadly since then the press has got worse in just wanting to make a name for themselves and do not care who they hurt this women needs to remember maybe if she had a son how would she feel if horrible things were said after he died just remember Jan Moir in life there is an old saying there for the grace of God Go I
tavdy79
Ms. Moir has turned herself into a parody of a parody: she’s aping Rita Skeeter, the gutter journalist from the Harry Potter books.
jimmy
Sebastien is right.
The prurience in Moir’s writing reveals her preconception that someone like Gately could only die in a cloud of salaciousness, not a tragic, acute medical condition. He deserves no benefit of the doubt. Typical sort of pabulum one would expect to find in a right-wing rag read by drooling imbeciles.
alan brickman
most women who hate gays usually do it just because they also just hate all men!!!…
Fitz
Oh Alan, you are such a jealous queen.
Robert, NYC
Alan, right. Many of them are often jealous because so many gay men are good looking and they can’t find a good looking straight guy for themselves, plus they’re forever fearful we can lure their men away from them and feel threatened. I always remember hearing straight women upon learning a man is gay…saying…”what a waste”. I always resented that and still do. Its as if we’re less than they are, all part of the dehumanizing of our fellow LGBT people.
allancsn
sad story – sweet boy dead – but the the commet 51 Oh Alan your just jealous made me laugh and laugh and laugh – cos honey you are. But why you’ve become a queerty cliche.
Distingué Traces
Well, it’s true that most people who pick up Bulgarians end up with pulmonary edema.
Phoenix (God Hates Shrimp And Polysester, Too, Muthaf*cka!)
Since when are heterosexual couples monogamous? From the many friends, family, neighbors, and celebrities I would guess very few or none. And why must everyone be monogamous anyway? Monogamy came about from the patriarchal, sexist notion women were the property of their fathers and husbands and only their Owner/Spouse could give them permission to fuck. Sorry, but that notion is waaaay out-dated. Marriage isn’t about property rights anymore….unless you live under sharia law.
ts
I don’t agree with everything she wrote, but I would wonder about a str8 man or woman dying suddenly at that age too. Doesn’t seem right.
Azrael
Sleazy she says, as if the straight world are not sleazy. She should be reminded that straights have threesomes and orgies and more, straights can pretend to be bi sexual.
She should read this to remind her that the straight world is far from pure :-
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/Articles/000,015.pdf
Azrael
Jan Moir has her own website
http://www.areyoureadytoorder.co.uk/
Registrant
PO BOX 55524
London
SW7 5YU
United Kingdom
Azrael
Name & Registered Office:
ARE YOU READY TO ORDER ? LTD
2ND FLOOR
145-157 ST JOHN STREET
LONDON
EC1V 4PY
Company No. 06229678
John
The article is offensive in that it “speaks ill of the dead”, but basically the columnist is speaking what is probably on most people’s minds. Yes she has whitewashed gays as promiscuous, but, to be honest, I know only one or two couples that insist they are not in an open relationship. The image we portray to the world is not a good one, if we are trying to be accepted by society. What straight bar do you know that has glory holes and porn showing? We have hissy fits when lawmakers dispprove of the things we do behind closed doors..our problem is we seem to want to take it out from behind closed doors..thats how we become unacceptable to society.
Robert, NYC
John, in America there are what are called, “swingers clubs”. Overwhelmingly straight couples married or otherwise involved, engaging in partner swapping and a sprinkling of bisexuality thrown in, in some instances. Then there are those sleazy men’s clubs where you find female, topless pole dancers with a tiny covering for their genitalia, and of course, then we have the straight adulterers, many of them in politics who don’t get the same treatment that gay people get, their sexual orientation is never brought into question let alone demonized and denigrated for all of the rag readers of the New York Post and other right wing rags to scoff at and take pleasure in. Granted, straights may not have back rooms or glory holes but they do have prostitution rings, call girl rings, sex trafficking. But that’s ok of course because its straight and isn’t on the receiving end of ridicule or dehumanisation of the clientele, the women involved or their sexual orientation. Jan Moir never addresses that.
Robert, NYC
John, in America there are what are called, “swingers clubs”. Overwhelmingly straight couples married or otherwise involved, engaging in partner swapping and a sprinkling of bisexuality thrown in, in some instances. Then there are those sleazy men’s clubs where you find female, topless pole dancers with a tiny covering for their genitalia, and of course, then we have the straight adulterers, many of them in politics who don’t get the same treatment that gay people get, their sexual orientation is never brought into question let alone demonized and denigrated for all of the rag readers of the New York Post and other right wing rags to scoff at and take pleasure in. Granted, straights may not have back rooms or glory holes but they do have prostitution rings, call girl rings, sex trafficking. But that’s ok of course because its straight and isn’t on the receiving end of ridicule or dehumanization of the clientele, the women involved or their sexual orientation. Jan Moir never addresses that.
Darrien
John,
Your equality should never be dependent on the majority approving or disapproving of your behaviour. So long as you break no laws and pay the same taxes, equality is a right. Please look at all the places in the world where lgtb rights are so much more advanced than in the US. All those places have gay bars and porn and they still got their rights because they understood that conformity does not amount to equality.
The reason Moir’s article is creating such a shitstorm in the UK and Ireland is precisely because she snidely attacked a dead man who hadn’t even been buried and happened to be gay. In 300 hundred years of British newspaper history, this one article has attracted more complaints than any other thing published. And it’s not all gays and boy-band fans – it’s people of all races, creeds, ages, classes and beliefs. And they’re making these complaint because they recognise Moir is just plain wrong.
This frakas has nothing to do with Gately’s sex life and everything to do with him being treated equally. Wouldn’t you love to have the same thing happen where you live instead of having to worry about other people’s approval for what you do in bed?
tavdy79
Increasingly, the cloak of freedom of speech is used as a defence for the kind of deliberate, gratuitous disrespect that Ross and Brand displayed… They fatally underestimated public taste, values and our strong sense of British fair play.
Those were the words of Jan Moir, commenting on last year’s Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row, which led to both Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, the men responsible for the prank telephone calls, being suspended.
In fact, the publication of Moir’s Gately article occurred one year to the day after the prank phone calls made by Ross and Russell in Russell’s radio show.
It would appear we do not merely have a bigot on our hands: we have a hypocrite as well. You should always careful what you say Ms. Moir, else some day your words will come back and bite you in the ass.
Jojo
God, what a bunch of nothing-else-to-do people. I don’t think she’s wrong on her article. It’s a point of view. I don’t think she is THAT disrespectful. People should stop being so mi-mi-mi and care about important issues. All this fuzz just made us look a riot senseless group. Complain about this article? Seriously? Gay people should stop to act as a flawless group and face all the kind of comments with dignity and information. Shouting, yelling and anything in between just made them scare us, never respect us.
Jojo
Sorry, I meant fear us, not scare.
Steven
You are wrong, Jojo: you do not have to be gay to be disgusted by this article. I personally know 3 people who had unsuspected heart defects that could have killed them, but this gutter-journo insists that their condition cannot possibly exist?! In doing that, she has poured scorn over the Spanish & UK police, and utterly dismissed the findings of the coroner.
Is she qualified to cast such doubts on these medical findings? No, she is not. She was a resturant reviewer, for crying out loud! Her article is riddled with misinformation that insults anyone who has died of a similar condition – and I believe that is something like 5-10 people a week in the UK.
I would add that the fans of boyzone have every right to also complain and be disgusted. While no fan myself – boyzone were too sacchrine for me – everyone in the UK with a passing interest in music knows that boyzone always sang live. Gately was a good singer: for Jan Moir to say he ‘could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk’ and ‘He was the Posh Spice of Boyzone, a popular but largely decorous addition’ will of course cause anger.
Jade Hockie
Being gay is a sin,the columnist did nothing wrong,it is a “sorted” death, I’m sorry but that is how I feel. I checked Stephens facebook page and he has way less friends than I do and he is a celebrity!!
Jade Hockie
Jo jo is right,GET OVER IT! You onl.y want to get married so you can convince everyone what you do is natural,try reading Leviticus 18:22.
Robert, NYC
Jade, if you’re an orthodox jew then yes it is a sin. That worn out man made mantra in Leviticus is in the jewish part of the bible, the old testament. In the new testament, the christian part, Jesus Christ NEVER mentioned or condemned gay people, not even once. Heard of judge not lest ye shall be judged? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone? I guess that doesn’t apply to your bigotry. Why don’t you go check out http://www.fallwell.com and you’ll find out how you and your right wing idiots deliberately and selectively cherry pick this and that reference to suit your own agenda. You’re not more christian than I am. Straight adultery is condemned though and I doubt you go to straight websites castigating your own kind, though I doubt if you’re that straight spending time on a gay blogsite for starters. Get a life and concentrate on having a happy sex life of your own instead of coveting and obsessing about ours that brings you here in the first place.