Boyzone's Stephen Gately is dead

[Ana Ng]

The Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, 33, has been found dead while on holiday in Majorca.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8301187.stm

[Hastings]

That actually makes me sadder than I thought it would, never having been a boy band fan.
I think it's because he always seemed so... well, so nice.

[Christie]

I agree Hastings, he always seemed like such a nice, sweet person, and the tributes coming in from those who knew him seem to bear that out. Of all the groups that were kicking around during the time when my kids were going through the boy band stage I found Boyzone was the only one that I thought surpassed the boy band label.

[unbroken]

Very sad. So unexpected.

[Sister Ray]

Is it bad that until now I've never heard of Boyzone?

Sister "and I was a teenager in the late nineties" Ray

[Saluki Worship]

Boyzone's Stephen Gately died of natural causes says post mortem

http://www.nme.com/news/boyzone/47817

[Tarquin Farquart]

The news of Stephen Gately's death was deeply shocking. It was not just that another young star had died pointlessly.

Through the recent travails and sad ends of Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and many others, fans know to expect the unexpected of their heroes - particularly if those idols live a life that is shadowed by dark appetites or fractured by private vice

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...lys-death.html

[aceygray]

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.

What now? Is he suggesting that they died because they were gay?

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by aceygray

What now? Is he suggesting that they died because they were gay?

It's a she, but yes, it would appear so.

[Twankydillo]

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.

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.

It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death.

As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men whoAnother 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.

It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death.

As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamourous routine.

What? Stephan Gately dying strikes a blow against civil partnerships? And what is this 'glamourous routine' of Stephen Gately's is it that impressionable young men might want to emulate? Even if there was a threesome going on and he'd smoked a little weed, that's hardly shockingly sordid and it wasn't that which killed him. And if it was true - which hasn't been proven - that's got nothing to do with him being gay, it' something that goes on behind lots of closed doors.

By their wording and grasping at straws it looks to me like they're simply stringing anything together that makes it look like homosexuality is a dirty little fetish and that gay marriage is just playing house, a front. Any gay person who dies mysteriously must have died from something kinky. Todays homophobia was brought to you by the Daily Mail.

[Stoneage Dinosaur]

Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.

Umm, yes they do. Not often, but it happens.

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.

What happy ever after myth? Or is Daily Mail World really that far removed from reality? Anyone could come up with examples of heterosexual marriages which are similar to the writer's, thus showing that civil partnerships are the same.

[Lainie]

Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.

Originally Posted by Stoneage Dinosaur

Umm, yes they do. Not often, but it happens.

Or more accurately, 33YO men (and women) who are believed to be healthy and fit sometimes go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again, after which we discover that they were not, in fact, as healthy as they appeared. For example, they might have had a previously undiscovered heart defect.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two young, apparently healthy and fit men I knew who learned (fortunately without dying) that they had previously undetected heart defects.

Of course, one of them was gay. . .!!!

[Tarquin Farquart]

They've changed the headline on the article.

It now says

A strange, lonely and troubling death . . .

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Lainie

Of course, one of them was gay. . .!!!

Don't tell the Daily Mail that...

[Mama Duck]

For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.

Uh-huh. So all the reports point to a tragic medical incident. And he did apparently smoke weed. Unless he choked to death on said weed, that's not what killed him. Are there that few scandals going on that tabloids are having to invent them now?

[Mosherette]

This is all over Twitter. Someone posted the link to the Press Complaints Commission's website, Derren Brown and Stephen Fry both re-Tweeted it - and now the PCC's website is down.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Mosherette

This is all over Twitter. Someone posted the link to the Press Complaints Commission's website, Derren Brown and Stephen Fry both re-Tweeted it - and now the PCC's website is down.

'Twas on the Twitter where I saw it. I'm impressed the PCC's broken though. Just shows people's thoughts on the article.

[BringTheNoise]

I think FeMail may actually be worse than the rest of the Mail put together. Ugh.

[Magpye]

I quite liked this response in the Guardian.

[AnglRdr]

Originally Posted by Magpye

I quite liked this response in the Guardian.

It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.

I see I am going to have to work much harder when writing my snark-filled diatribes, as Ms Moir appears to have set the bar quite high indeed.