Oct 20 2009
Gay Bashing Jan Moir Style
- Stephen Gately photo by Michelle Woolnough
The Daily Mail hit a new low this week with Jan Moir’s piece on the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately. Not only did she manage to trample all over his soon to be dug grave, she made Gately’s tragic death the centre-peice of over 900 words of unapologetic gay-bashing.
The article published on the 16 October, in which Jan Moir describes Gately’s death as striking a blow to the “happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships” has seen a record 21,000 complaints lodged with the Press Complaints Commission.
Moir described Gately’s death “strange, lonely and troubling”. Though I hasten to add if you read the coroners report, it is not particularly strange, it was hardly lonely with his husband in the next room and to anyone outside his immediate circle of family and friends, the only troubling thing about Gately’s death is the response it provoked from a Daily Mail columnist.
Inspite of having no medical training and no background in forensic medicine Moir went on to say “Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this.” – Though one would hasten to add that the coroner who, unlike Jan Moir, possesses a degree in forensic medicine and actually examined Stephen Gately’s body, declared the death to be due to a pulmony oedema (fluid on the lungs) caused by a previously undiagnosed heart condition.
Moir herself denied there were any homophobic undertones to her article. However, one can only conclude that she hasn’t bothered to read her own work before sending it print. The article is rife with slurs, smears, assumptions and mis-information, which if not consciously meant to be anti-gay, reveals a deep-rooted homophobia in Jan Moir’s subconscious.
Insensitively Moir suggests that Gately and husband Cowles had invited 25 year-old Bulgarian Georgi Dochev back to their apartment that night for the purpose of an extra-marital shagging session. Whilst the facts seem to be that Cowles and Dochev retired to the bedroom whilst Gately stayed on the sofa. Whatever the truth of the truth of the circumstances, its none of Moir’s business or anyone else’s for that matter. What’s more Gately clearly wasn’t upset by the arrangement otherwise he would have hardly nodded off on the sofa.
Aside from the disgusting manner in which she slates a talented young entertainer, the most troubling part of Moir’s article for the wider gay and non-heterosexual community is the way she equated Gately’s [gay] lifestyle with been “dangerous” and “troubling”, bizarrely linked it with the death of another gay celebrity Kevin McGee, the late former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas.
Thankfully Moir’s article hasn’t gone unchallenged.
Charlie Brooker led the calls for people to stand up to this kind of wantant gay-bashing in a witty piece for the Guardian and the Daily Mail made some effort to redeem itself with a sterling contribution by Janet Street-Porter.
Though without wanting to diminish Ms Street-Porter’s rebuttal, one cannot help but think that the Mail published this piece so they could claim to be fair and balanced. Screw that! They shouldn’t have published Moir’s piece in the first place.
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2 Responses to “Gay Bashing Jan Moir Style”
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Dreadful woman, though 22,000 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission plus a superb counter from Charlie Brooker in The Guardian……
Pretty typical reporting from The Daily Mail though, spreading fear into the gullible and frightened suburban lower-middle-classes with their Right Wing dross…….
As much as I hate “internet speak”, it is no wonder some people are calling that certain paper the Daily Fail.
I tend to ignore the papers, they all push their own agenda. As to the article from Janet Street Porter, looking at her other articles on there it seems she just goes off in a steam at anything she is pointed at. It just happens she was pointed at the right thing for a change, her other linked articles are nothing short of rabid. It seems though that being rabid is probably a job requirement for the Daily Mail.
As much as the BBC has its failings they do at least try, most of the time. They’re also in theory neutral so you don’t get particularly severe right or left wing tendencies, though I’m terrible at noticing patterns long term so I might miss some of their habits. They don’t make a big deal of their political alignment if any though at least. ITV news is as bad as the papers though sometimes, at least when it comes to reporting shock stories out of proportion.