There have been many news stories to make the queens scream this past year. Heads have spun much like Linda Blair’s did in The Exorcist – if, that is, she had been powered by the Hadron Super Collider. Extreme Emotional Reaction, as opposed to that great British standard, Rational Thought, ruled. Remember the ‘Amazon Fail’ incident? Before there were any facts circulating, the cries of homophobia rang out as if Quasimodo himself were tugging on the ropes. And witness the reactions to the BBC’s ill-advised question ‘Should homosexuals be executed?’. Facebook trembled at the high-pitch indignation and the insults hurled at the BBC (along with a few lame comments about the licence fee that were worthy of the average Daily Mail reader). Peter Tatchell responded with a measured grace to the situation, but sadly his lead was not followed, and the playground-politics of gay rights fired off as if from Cape Canaveral itself. There was much brouhaha and the flinging of insults as opposed to rational response.

One of the nastiest cases this year, on both sides of the divide, was the Jan Moir column on the death of Stephen Gately. Andrew Cowles, Gately’s husband, has now made an official complaint. The Press Complaints Commission does not usually investigate third-party complaints, but a record 25,000 complaints were received.

The nastiness of the column and vindictiveness of the response were equally appalling. The opinion in the Moir article is offensive and disrespectful, but repeatedly publishing her home address on the internet to aid retribution, or just plain tomato throwing, is rather lower.

I wonder, though, if she lives a life or a lifestyle at this address.

Attention has thankfully been diverted this past weekend with the coming out of Welsh rugby star Gareth Thomas. Quite why he did so in the Daily Mail, though, is a matter for speculation. Or perhaps indignation that such a disreputable organ should get such a scoop. And in Femail at that!

It’s ok, though, the virtual-world commentariat are claiming that this “open secret” is not news. In other words, if you can’t react hysterically to a situation, why not be superior instead?

Neverthless, the scramble to interview Thomas, and get a racy cover image out of it no doubt, will be the resident obsession in the gay media offices this week. What will GT do we may all wonder? Or not.

Watch out Gareth Thomas, the gay media vultures are circling your dead heterosexual body …