Jan Moir -vs- The Rest Of The World

I pondered whether there was likely some barb to the Daily Mail's use of "husband" in its headline referring to Stephen Gately's death.

Sure enough, here is the poison - Jan Moir's article

A strange, lonely and troubling

death . . .

Which if you want to read, you must only do if you read Charlie Brooker's retort

Why there was nothing 'human' about Jan Moir's column on the death of Stephen Gately

The funeral of the former Boyzone star Stephen Gately is to take place at St Laurence O'Toole's Church in Dublin at midday today.

I suspect that there has been some "massaging" of events surrounding SG's death, driven by his family and Boyzone management (e.g. the all too quick assertion by the family that there was no third man involved).

You can understand - you wouldn't want your child's legacy to be a "sleazy" death.

Certainly, it does appear that this much (lifted from Moir's piece) is true; it has been widely reported:

After a night of clubbing, Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment...

Cowles and Dochev went to the bedroom together while Stephen remained alone in the living room.

Her conjecture:

It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta with 25-year-old Georgi Dochev was not what was on the cards.

What happened before they parted is known only to the two men still alive. What happened afterwards is anyone's guess.

Then, she suggests:

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

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

As if this were just a gay thing, concluding

And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy.

So, this sort of activity is exclusive to gays - arguing that they [civil partnerships] are just the same as heterosexual marriages?

Ashley Cole and Cheryl Tweedie come to mind...

In January 2008, a hairdresser named Aimee Walton alleged that she had engaged in drunken extramarital sex with Ashley Cole in a kiss-and-tell interview with The Sun. Glamour model Brooke Healy claimed that she had spent the night and had sexual relations with Ashley Cole in December 2006. Promotion for Girls Aloud's "Can't Speak French" was put on hold. Cheryl stopped wearing her wedding band. The couple, however, have reconciled and stayed together. Source.

Were it not that my plane's about to board, I'm sure that I could find a myriad of others...

But, when all is said and done, there is a great sadness in SG having died on the couch, alone, and Andy Cowles forever having to question whether, had he not left SG on the couch, might events have turned out differently?