Friday, February 19, 2010



Free speech about homosexuality upheld in Britain (for once)

We read:
"A complaint about Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir’s articles on the death of the Boyzone singer Stephen Gately has not been upheld by the Press Complaints Commission.

Mr Gately’s civil partner Andrew Cowles complained about an article headlined ‘A strange, lonely and troubling death’, and a second column headlined ‘The truth about my views on the tragic death of Stephen Gately’. Mr Cowles said the articles, which also attracted 25,000 third party complaints through social networks Facebook and Twitter to the PCC, were inaccurate, intrusive at a time of grief and had made a number of pejorative references to Mr Gately’s sexuality.

But, in a judgment released yesterday, the PCC said that, while it was legitimate for there to be criticism of the articles, Mr Cowles’s complaint was not upheld on any of the issues he had raised. The Commission said it should ‘be slow to prevent columnists from expressing their views, however controversial they might be’.

The PCC also said that, as a result of the huge public response to the article on social networking sites, and on the Mailonline website, both the newspaper and Ms Moir had been ‘confronted with the impact of what had been published’. The Commission said this showed a ‘healthy system’ for challenging a columnist’s opinions.

Source

Previous coverage of the matter here

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The Commission said it should ‘be slow to prevent columnists from expressing their views, however controversial they might be".

Shouldn't that apply to anyone who posts a comment, and not just "columinsts"? (ie: journalists)

Anonymous said...

Hey, if this keeps up, some day heterosexuals will have as many rights and protections as homosexuals have.

Bobby said...

Oh come on, 3:52 AM, when was the last time you got kicked out of the army for being straight?

I would like to see the article Jan Moir wrote, if it's just opinion, then it's protected free speech. After all, it's one thing to say "Barrack Obama is like Hitler" vs. "Barrack Obama has sex with chickens." If it's defamation or libel, then the speech is not necessarily protected. After all, Tom Cruise has sued the British media whenever they claim he's gay, and yes, he has won. So what's good for Cruise is good for Gately's partner. Now that's my fair and balanced statement!

Anon 3:52 said...

Bobby said...
"Oh come on, 3:52 AM, when was the last time you got kicked out of the army for being straight?"

When was the last time somebody was charged with a hate crime, (a felony) for giving you (what you "felt" was) a threatening look?

Bobby said...

"When was the last time somebody was charged with a hate crime, (a felony) for giving you (what you "felt" was) a threatening look?"

---I've never heard of that before, if you have an example of that I'd like to see it. I can also tell you that here in Florida they're not allowed to adopt children although they can be foster parents. So let's not kid ourselves, in spite of political correctness, they remain second class citizens and I would not want to switch places with them.

Anonymous said...

And they can't even kiss or hold hands with their partners in public as straights often do without risk of ridicule or actual assault.

Anonymous said...

Bobby, you never heard of hate crime laws and who they were invented to protect? Oh, you're in FloriDUH. No wonder you're not up on what's going on. I guess the news about hate-crime laws hasn't reached the sunshine state yet? Go over to Del Ray, on Atlantic, and ask around. They'll tell you.

Bobby said...

"Bobby, you never heard of hate crime laws and who they were invented to protect? "

---They don't really protect anyone, they punish perpetrators after the fact. If you want protection you're better off carrying a gun, shooting your attacker, and then calling the police.

I also found the following:

2008: 1,617 ate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias were reported by law enforcement agencies. Of these offenses:

* 58.6 percent were classified as anti-male homosexual bias.
* 25.7 percent were reported as anti-homosexual bias.
* 12.0 percent were prompted by an anti-female homosexual bias.
* 2.0 percent were the result of an anti-heterosexual bias.
* 1.7 percent were classified as anti-bisexual bias.
http://gaylife.about.com/od/hatecrimes/a/statistics.htm

Anonymous said...

79% of all statistics are wrong.

Anonymous said...

93.5% of all statistics posted in the comment section of blogs are made up on the spot.