Jan Moir - Synonym for Professional Suicide?

It isn't very often I go on the offense with regard to homophobes. I do occasionally, however, go out of my way to highlight ignorance and stupidity when it shows its all too common face.

The fact that Jan Moir's delightful article, on top of being uninformed, is also so bigoted that it's almost amusing is just a bonus. I get to champion civil liberty and be egalitarian all in the same blog post. I am nothing if not dilligent.

Moir's article (which can be found here -- backed up incase the media should do something sneaky, which of course they never, ever would...) makes two rather glaring errors in its approach to Stephen Gately's life and unfortunate death; One, that homosexual partnership is held up to a higher standard than heterosexual marriage, and secondly;

That his death wasn't natural.

I don't want to make a huge deal of her claim, or fill this entry with flagrant rhetoric (like that) but in her obvious desire for column inches and sensationalism, Moir has gone and overlooked that one tiny obstacle in her her way; the truth.

Coronor ruled 'Pulminary Odoema' - Fluid on the lungs. Entirely natural. Possibly caused by a previously unknown heart condition, or by vomiting in his sleep. Both happen, and both are unfortunate. The oh-so-subtle undertone she injects into her article that there was foul play involed with his death is just like my oh-so-subtle undertone that she's a stupid bitch.

Except I'm right.

To draw my ramblings to a neat conclusion (Well, perhaps not so neat), we have her suggestion--as always tempered with fairness and morality--that heterosexual marriages are the paragon of union, and public tragedies such as the deaths of Stephen Gately and Kevin McGee bring the name of homosexual marriage down to a much lower level than heterosexual marriage could even dream.

Which is utter crap. If anything, it proves that homosexual and heterosexual marriage are on a very, very even playing field. Men marry women, then have affairs with other women; they break their families up, get depressed, and can kill themselves, or cause others to. Women can do the same thing. The world can be dark, and althought I like to think that there is a lot of good to counterbalance the unavoidably grim situations I mentioned above, it nevertheless can and does happen.

These unfortunate deaths highlight nothing more than the tragedies that can happen as part of the human condition. It's not sexual, it's not gender.

It's just sad.