Jan Moir gets late nomination for Stonewall Bigot of the Year award
Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir has been added as a nominee for Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year award.
The journalist provoked outrage in October with an article that suggested Boyzone star Stephen Gately’s death was “sleazy” and “unnatural”.
The star died of natural causes while on holiday with his civil partner in Majorca.
After the Press Complaints Commission received 22,000 complaints from readers, Moir was forced to apologise to Gately’s friends and family, although she maintained her article had not been homophobic.
The Stonewall Awards are to be held tonight in central London and will be hosted by gay television presenter Gok Wan.
A Stonewall spokesman said the decision was taken after the charity’s supporters called for Moir to be included in the list.
The charity says she has even been invited to attend the ceremony but it is not known whether she will show up.
Moir has plenty of competition for the Bigot of the Year gong.
Those already in the running are Dr Sheila Matthews, the doctor who refused to approve gay couples to adopt, Father John Owen, who claimed most paedophiles were gay men, Fred Phelps and Shirley Roper-Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Chuch, who picket AIDS victims funerals with ‘God Hates Fags’ placards, DJ Spoony, who said that attractive women should be “saved” for straight men, and the Bishop of Winchester, who told the House of Lords in July that homosexuality was a personal choice.
The Bigot of the Year award recognises those who have gone out of their way to “harm, hurt or snub” lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the last year. Previous winners have included Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles, for calling a ringtone he disliked “gay”, and Northern Ireland MP Iris Robinson, who called homosexuality “an abomination”.
