A dry, empty, husk where her humanity used to be.

I am assuming you've all been following the Stephen Gately story as avidly as I have: A man of just 33 years who died of an underlying hereditary disease whilst holidaying with his partner. I am sure, too, that you have discussed it among yourselves, before the post-mortem; trying to figure out what happened and why. I am sure there were some tasteless jokes, and that in some people you were met with stern indifference to just another celebrity death. Chalk it up to nonchalance, fine; however, I am sure the majority of people you spoke with had a genuine, and heartfelt sadness at seeing someone who was once so popular pass in such a mysterious and unexpected way. A pulmonary oedema has now been ruled as what killed him, incidentally. I am sure, too, that you followed the generous news coverage that this story garnered: It was front-page fodder for a few days, from the time of his death, to the result of the hastily administered inquest. It was a lot of things; what it was not, is what Jan Moir has proclaimed it as in her most recent article in the Daily Hate.

For those of you who are unaware of the piece, it basically revolves around the principle that part of the blame rests not only with his homosexuality, but with his civil union, too. Moir started by painting a verbose and inaccurate picture, grounded purely on prolix and baseless rhetoric; she then went on, in time-honoured tradition, by ruminating as to the cause of his death, and to the events surrounding it; rounding it off with her coup de grace: an allusion to civil unions being implicated in his death, or at least contributing. Reading the article, which I urge you to do, will make you realise but three things: The state of this country's journalism is in dire need of decent, stringent, editing; Jan Moir is unable to use the Oxford comma, and that if you cracked her head open and peered inside all you would find is an open thesaurus, and a dry, empty, shrivelled husk where her humanity used to be.

What you've got is a kind of schadenfreude profiteering the likes of which I have never read: She postulates on his death purely to further her own latent homophobic agenda, and to prolong a floundering career where articles are not only pulled out of by advertisers, but where topics switch from inflammatory hate-mongering to celebrity clothes-watching in a second. Articles which demarcate the border between journalism and mere prostitution of a large vocabulary; articles which highlight precisely why people are loathed to associate with journalists, or even to admit to reading some people's columns. An article full of spite and ante-precedented latent bigotry; an article which devours any shred of humanity in a fit of greed, lust, spite and moral depravity. An article which casts aside any nod to decency or morality, and which merely transcends the papers' normal hate-fuelled ignorance into a realm unknown in another publication before. What you are left with is an article which makes you feel dirty, an article that genuinely inspires you to become proactive in complaining (just as of interest, at the time of writing this, the PCC [Press Complaints Commission] has received over 1,000 complaints regarding the article: Its inaccuracies, &c.); an article which maligns Stephen Gately without evidence, and based purely on a twisted, immaterial platform of self-bettering and grandstanding.

She claims that the deaths of Stephen Gately and Matt Lucas' late-partner Kevin McGee are demonstrable indications of problems within the battle for equality. She alludes to there being an inherent problem (though she later, as a justification, goes on to cite precedence of her being active pro-gay-rights) within the sphere of the equalising of marriage for homosexual couples. She finishes off this dog-turd of an analogy with her dignified insinuation that Gately's homosexuality was in some way a bad example for his legion of easily influenced fans.

The article has been criticised by thousands on the basis of it being: Inaccurate, intrusion into grief or shock, and discriminatory (three things covered at length within the PCC's code of conduct). Whether it is inaccurate or not is hard to pin down - incendiary and baseless, yes, inaccurate - hard to say. The second is hard to justify against, really; although she has tried. Now a code of conduct does not only apply to hard-hitting news journalism, but to softly dealt features as well. The story had already been amply covered and explained with fact and evidence, Moir's article merely expounded a bigoted viewpoint based on nothing - so, yes, that's a go. Discriminatory: Yes, giant, big, fat, fucking yes. It's discriminatory and offensive to any who reside outside of heteronormacy; of course it is: There's allusions to there being an innate conceptual subversion within the burgeoning institution of civil partnerships - who wouldn't be offended by that? There's also suggestions of immorality on the part of the protagonists purely because they're gay.

I'm not sure if this is the week for slamming people based purely on their sexuality; though, of course, Dannii Minogue had the courtesy to address her complaints ante-mortem. Minogue mocked one of the X-factor contestants (dunno what his name is) for being a bit of a fence-sitter (re: sexuality), blah blah, massive fallout as thousands of people who are probably closet homophobes got up off their sofas to complain. Fear not, however, you protesters; for our in-house entertainment Moir is running a sort of voluntary euthanasia deathpoll in her column:

"Robbie, Amy, Kate, Whitney, Britney; we all know who they are. And we are not being ghoulish to anticipate, or to be mentally braced for, their bad end: a long night, a mysterious stranger, an odd set of circumstances that herald a sudden death."

Far be it from me to judge this for what it is; but is it not a tad prurient to be foreshadowing the deaths of certain people to only further her spin? I am loathe to say that it strikes me as cracking open a freshly sealed casket and curling out a long one right on the deceased's chest, whilst onlookers stare vacantly at the surrealist metaphor unfolding before their eyes. That's how you feel reading this article: As if time has slowed down, and you've fallen into a nihilist's take on a Dali painting; melting clocks are replaced by apathy; elephants by prurience; landscape by self-aggrandising immorality. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the PCC will act upon the complaints unless the Gately family feel it pertinent to voice their views as well: Something I urge them to do, and to not.

It would be unspeakably asinine of me to continue this litany of bilge, lest I fall too far into libellous (oops) territory. I feel it requisite though to refer to another line in the diatribe of Jan's creation:

"A founder member of Ireland's first boy band, he was the group's co-lead singer, even though he could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk."

Unbeknownst to us all, Jan is evidently both master of malignant metaphor and of the arts; I was unaware God behove her with such an apt tongue and ear to discern such nuances in someone's style. Far be it from me to allege that this metaphor is stilted to the point of hilarity; that the suffixed allusion is so poorly crafted it feels like a mere after-thought to the hateful dirge, and that poor Stephen in fact was unworthy of his position within the '90's musical sphere. A wastrel though I am, I feel this line is the antithesis of spite; a dance on the graveside mid-funeral. Knowing full well it is impossible to defame the dead, Jan has taken it upon herself to be the 'voice of the people' and declaim Gately as a homosexual, talentless wastrel. There's no need for this tag-on, and that's precisely what it is. The formulaic style is all too easy to follow; it's ad hominem for the sake of ease and laziness: Whence you cannot substantiate a legitimate claim as to indecency, pick on the person instead - even if he has so recently passed.

Perhaps just me, but does not the line, "but he received an overwhelmingly positive response from fans. In fact, it only made them love him more" have an unpleasant undertone of irreverence? It's as if the response to his coming out as a homosexual was both misguided and unnecessary; perhaps we should have ostracised a man forced to reveal his public life by another low-life threatening to sell his story to the tabloid serial-masturbators? That is all this is: This is black-market profiteering at the bequest of an unscrupulous, machiavellian editor; spear-headed by ignorance and fear. This is a fear that we might laud a man who has lived a life, albeit an unconventional one. This is terror. That embodiment of a paralysing fear of the unknown - Freud called it the uncanny: That failure to rationalise that which we cannot explain through logic, that which is different to what we are used to; something to be lamented as a pox.

For once again, under the illusion of moral, nihilistic narcissism, the slime of a disparate and infinitely more unpleasant reporting has oozed out for us all to see.