I’ve never complained to the Press Complaints Commission before. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever complained about anything much, though this is probably more to do with laziness than apathy. The Daily Mail is infamously inept when it comes to the sensitive reporting of unsullied facts over personal opinion, but today’s homophobic diatribe by Jan Moir has to be one of the most hideous things ever printed. It has driven me to write the complaint below:

Stephen Gately died of a pulmonary oedema, thought to be connected to a congenital heart condition. However, it is Moir’s own opinion, contrary to what was clearly revealed in a post-mortem, that Gately did not die of natural causes. It’s not clear exactly what she thinks his cause of death actually was, but from the article, we must assume that he died from marrying a man, smoking a joint, and not being the best singer in Boyzone.

This article has not “distinguished clearly between comment, conjecture and fact”, therefore breaching clause 1 of the The PCC’s Code of Practice straight away. She claims that: “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.” She appears to be accusing Gately’s family and legal representative of some sort of cover-up, stating that his parents are “keen to register their boy’s demise on the national consciousness as nothing more than a tragic accident” and continuing with “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.” In cases involving grief or shock, the PCC is adamant that publication be “handled sensitively”. Just in case we weren’t aware of Moir’s opinion on Gately’s career and achievements, she thus points out that “…he could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk. He was the Posh Spice of Boyzone, a popular but largely decorous addition.” Lovely.

Moir has already ridden roughshod over clause 5 of the PCC’s Code (Intrusion Into Grief or Shock) and spends the rest of the article dancing about all over Clause 12 (Discrimination). This states: “i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability. ii) Details of an individual’s race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.” The phrases “dark appetites”, “private vice” and “damaging habits” are used almost straight away, as well as comparisons to Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger, neither of whom died of natural causes. The fact that gay marriage could be considered just as potentially fatal as an accidental overdose of prescription drugs is ludicrous, yet this appears to be what she is implying. “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.” Well, except that is isn’t anyone’s guess. There was an autopsy. It clearly stated that Gately died of natural causes. “Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.” I never realised that Civil Partnership promised to render a person immortal, but it seems that Moir is again overruling medical opinion and reality for the sake of a good rant.

To pen an entire article – an article littered with sexual innuendo and implied accusations, using words such as “sleazy”, “dubious” and “dangerous” to describe the circumstances surrounding a death by natural causes – on the basis that his death was in any way connected to his sexuality is irresponsible, inappropriate and highly offensive. This is almost certainly a publicity stunt by Moir and the Mail to rile woolly liberals like me into clicking on a link to their website and therefore boost their web traffic and advertising revenue. Well it worked, and it shouldn’t. If there is any way that this can be stopped, please make it happen.

Read Moir’s article at this link (copied and pasted from the Mail’s website so that they won’t earn extra advertising revenue from your click. Don’t worry, I won’t earn anything either. Nobody wants to advertise shampoo, phone packages or holidays here.)