There has been public outcry following the publication of an insensitive and factually questionable article by Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir the day before Stephen Gately’s funeral. The Press Complaints Commission in the UK has received 21,000 complaints about her article since Friday – more complaints in one weekend than they’ve received in the past 5 years in total. Congratulations Jan!

Clearly the Mail realised they’d put their foot in something whiffy as they changed the article title online from: “Why There’s Nothing ‘Natural’ about Stephen Gately’s Death” to “A strange, lonely and troubling death”. A blattant attempt to take Jan Moir’s foot out of her very large mouth.

Her article attempted to infer that there was some sort of cover up as regards the Boyzone singer’s death.  In contrast to the other supportive articles reporting on Gatelys death, which mingled the facts of his death with commentary on his impact on the gay community since coming out publicly in 1999, Moir’s piece aspired to the seedy and sensational. She inferred that the coroner, the police and his family are in cohoots to downplay the incident as a natural death using the most ridiculous analogy I’ve heard in a while.

She wrote: “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.”

Laying it on thick she said:

“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.”

Without proferring any evidence for her claims that something untoward had occurred, she called for ‘the truth to come out’ .  She also painted a subtle scene of primiscuous gay sex – an impressive display of tact and acknowledging the family’s grief the day before the funeral – and using her vast insight into gay rights she commented:

“Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.”

Speaking outside the church at Gately’s funeral, Alan Hunter, who runs the Irish music radio station ShamrockFM.com, urged as many people as possible to write to the paper’s editor and demand an apology for Gately’s family.

“We are all very very insulted by that coverage even if people are entitled to their own opinion. There is a time and a place for everything but it was the wrong time entirely to be launching an attack like that. I certainly hope the Irish people force that newspaper’s editor to apologise for the great hurt caused by that article. It’s the least they can do,” Hunter said.

Moir did release a statement addressing the online tirade against her. She avoids apologising for any offense caused by acknowledging that she skillfully pissed off people. She said the purpose of her piece was to highlight the “unanswered questions” surrounding his death:

“…it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death – out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger – did not have a bearing on his death.”

Clearly a fan of conspiracy theories, Moir referred to an ‘orchestrated campaign’ against her online, feeling that comments suggesting her article had homophobic and bigotted undertones were unjust as she was a supporter of gay rights and civil partnership.  It’s a pity she isn’t such a hardened follower of journalistic ethics.