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Mail columnist throws a shadow over Gately funeral
21,000 complaints received by PCC after Stephen Fry leads internet assault on ‘repulsive nobody’ Jan Moir
The Mail newspapers have had a tricky weekend trying to control the damage caused by an extraordinary outburst by columnist Jan Moir (above, left), who wrote on Friday that "there was nothing natural about Stephen Gately's death" and that the circumstances were "more than a little sleazy".
Referring to the fact that Gately and his civil partner Andrew Cowles had taken a Bulgarian man home with them after meeting in a gay nightclub in Palma, and that cannabis might have been smoked earlier in the evening, she went on: "Under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see."
The column provoked an outpouring of disgust from friends and family gathering for Saturday's funeral in Dublin, and among the general public. A Twitter campaign organised by Stephen Fry led to so many complaints being sent to the Press Complaints Commission that its website crashed. And, under pressure from unhappy advertisers, the Mail was forced to remove several ads from its website.
The Mail on Sunday reporter with the tricky assignment of covering the Dublin funeral simply ignored the issue. Quoting mourners for his article headlined 'Farewell to our brother, farewell to our son', he managed to avoid those in the crowd still fuming at the Mail.
As for the Daily Mail this morning, in an effort to placate its advertisers and readers it employed the age-old tactic of "If one columnist screws up, just bring in another".
Janet Street Porter (above, right), the former TV executive who is well-known for her friendship with Sir Elton John and David Furnish - they introduced Gately to Cowles - and who knew Gately well enough to have holidayed with him, wrote: "I was astonished to read in Jan Moir's column last Friday that his [Gately's] death 'strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships'...
"What exactly was bothering Jan? The fact Stephen was gay, the fact he was in a civil partnership, or the fact that he or his partner might have enjoyed sex with someone they had just met?"
Street Porter went on to remind Moir that, whether she liked it or not, civil partnerships had been "enshrined in law by our democratically elected parliament".
As for the presence of a third man on the night Gately died, Street Porter asked: "If Stephen and his partner went to a nightclub and returned to their flat with another man, is it really any of our business?
"Fact - Stephen Gately died of natural causes, not from guilt. It's not as if extra-marital sex is unusual in our society."
Whether Street Porter's column is enough to get the Mail off the hook with any gay readers it might possibly still have is doubtful.
Stephen Fry wrote on Twitter: "I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathsome and inhumane," he tweeted. "Disgusted with Daily Mail's Jan Moir? Complain where it matters. She breaches 1,3,5 & 12 of the code."
The ensuing complaints to the PCC - concerning the insensitivity to Gately's family and apparent homophobia - not only crashed the website but broke records in terms of numbers received. The PCC is now "considering" 21,000 complaints.
Among the big-name advertisers whose ads were quickly taken down from the Mail online were Marks & Spencer, Kodak, National Express and Nestle, a spokesman for whom said: "The views in the article are not shared by Nestle. We have always emphasised the importance of mutual respect and tolerance."
On the streets of Dublin, Sue Morris, who had flown in from Nottingham to observe the funeral, described Moir's column as "vile and disgusting". Leaning on the barrier facing St Laurence's, sobbing, Sue Morris told a reporter: "I haven't read anything as nasty about someone who has died. Stephen was a beautiful person who did so much for the world."
That was reported in the Observer, not the Mail on Sunday. ·
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Comments
Fortunately for all of us, we live in a more enlightened world these days, where freedom of behavior, or preferences, be they sexual or otherwise, are more the norm than not. The same applies to Freedom of speech. People should be allowed to live as they wish, die as they wish, and speak as they wish.
Preferably, all without censure from others. But if one must speak out, and I do appreciate that it is the job of journalists and 'columnists' to comment on this, that, and the other, and that people like to read 'controversial' articles, there is a time and place for everything.
And the eve of a funeral is neither the time nor the place to launch an attack on someone and their lifestyle and habits, and beliefs. Three months down the line, this article would have been a 'point of view'. It's all about timing. Timing is everything. And this wasn't good.
I'm sure, as Stephen Fry says, she wishes she could 'rewind'.......but where were the Editors and sub-editors etc ? Does nobody do their job these days ?
Well I am trans and gay and I am in a Cvil Partnership with another Trans woman. For a while we were gay males I suppose some would say, and as our operations were at different times we were also heterosexual. Now we are lesbians. unless of course you are bigoted enough to believe we are just deluded castrated males who only think we are female.
This is the sort of nonsense labelling people brings, and those like Ms Moir pander to that confusion with homophobic bigotry that instills hatred and prejudism in the population as a whole.
I think all she has done has shown that however tolerant and smiley faced hypocrisy is shown on the british surface, the undercurrent of prejudism and bigotry still flows deep in the dark cesspits of those like her beliefs.
Nice to see the Mail getting it in the neck for a change as they are so fond of taking others apart with their philosophy of lets not let the truth spoil a good story eh!
I speak for those of us who did our unpleasant research and read Jan Moir's article in full before complaining to the PCC. Moir made the sort of allegations that queer bashers normally reserve for chats with their trusted cronies. She got what she deserved. I'm straight by the way, before anyone accuses me of being another member of the so-called Gay Lobby.
For some reason the last part of my earlier comment was lost. I think it was something like "There is no need* to offer reasons for rejecting prejudice".
*for Fry
(The earlier comment I referred to was a few days ago).
Well, it seems Peter Sissons believes not only that whatever Ms Moir wrote was just a piece of badly worded investigative journalism, but that all those who made a complaint are part of a 'gay lobby'.
Stephen Gately's death has been given in-depth explanations in many places including the report from the Majorcan coroner, who very clearly said he didn't choke on his own vomit, Peter - pulmonary oedema is completely natural, and though rare in the young it does happen especially with a family history of heart disease. A girl I knew at uni died of the same thing, in her bed, aged 20: by Peter's and Moir's reckoning this was impossible as she was too young, straight and a practising Christian...
The article has attracted so many complaints because it's wholly offensive: if a young straight married celebrity had died in exactly the same way would she have written it? Whatever her misgivings about the given cause of death, this was character assassination ('he couldn't carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton case' 'dark appetites' etc) and deeply homophobic.
A gay lobby? Speaking to friends yesterday, I found several had made complaints - because of disgust and a belief that articles like this incite and promote hatred and bigotry, whoever they're aimed at. Yes, one of them is gay, but he didn't call people to get them to follow his lead....
No one should be needlessly barracking anyone when a family is grieving a loved one. Fed up though I am with the hysteria of the 'gay' lobby, this is one in the eye for the Daily Mail bullies who have been partly responsible for the mostly unecessary politicisation of people's sexuality. They are being hoist by their own petard. Good.
I'd say it's Peter Simmons who's quite the bully these days - and a rather nasty one, too.
21,000. Not far short of the numbers which lost Russell Brand and his producer their jobs and gained for Jonathan Ross a suspension - as howled for by the Daily Mail. Presumably they will now treat their own purveyor of offensive twaddle in an even handed fashion.
Come on Peter. Your earlier comment was wrong. Put your hand up instead of trying to defend it.
>>>>"Stephen Fry is quite the bully these days. I guess it's quicker than reasoned argument."
Why are all surprised by Moir's article? Surely it's just another demonstration of what an odious and spiteful newspaper the Daily Mail is.
Well said Matt! Despite all this information being available to anyone who was interested enough to Google the subject, it seems there are still those who find an ill-informed comment quicker to than reasoned argument.
The question of the cause of death was dealt with by the coroner. The matter of the family history of heart diease was also widely known before the article was published.
Journalists in this country agree to abide by the PPC code of conduct. Time will tell if the 1000s of complaints are upheld.
And what exactly have "the gay lobby" learnt from the Muslims, Peter Simmons?
How is it bullying to disagree with someone? Are you subscribing to a sterotype of gays being too weak to fight back?
There is nothing reasoned about Jan Moir's article or Peter Simmons comments here.
Stephen Gately was loved by many people including his partner, as compassionate human beings we should allow these people to grieve without using his death as a vehicle to promote hatred and lies.
The question still remains if it is 'natural' for a 33 year old man to die in bed. I agree the article sounds pretty odious and homophobic, but it couldn't have been written if 'natural causes' hadn't been used without further explanation. There's nothing natral about dying at this age. While cannabis has never led to any deaths, alcohol certainly has, and as I read somewhere that food particles were found in his lungs, death from inhaling own vomit while too drunk to do anything about it, sounds the most likely. Binge drinking is rife, and being coy about it when applied to a minor musical talent who was way past his sell-by date is asking for speculation. It does sound like the gay lobby has learned from Muslims and now weighs in to frighten advertisers when anything is printed that upsets it. We live in a bullying society now, and it seems Stephen Fry is quite the bully these days. I guess it's quicker than reasoned argument.