The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. 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.

Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.

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.

After a night of clubbing, Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment. It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta with 25-year-old Georgi Dochev was not what was on the cards.

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

What happened that night? Only Gately’s civil partner, Andrew Cowles, left, and Georgi Dochev, who they took back to their apartment, know the truth

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

A post-mortem revealed Stephen died from acute pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on his lungs.

Gately’s family have always maintained that drugs were not involved in the singer’s death, but it has just been revealed that he at least smoked cannabis on the night he died.

Nevertheless, his mother is still insisting that her son died from a previously undetected heart condition that has plagued the family.

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

Be gay? Sleaze! Be gay and get married? DEATH WILL SOON FOLLOW! Gays can’t help but be hedonistic and do drugs, are rampantly unfaithful, unhappy and DIE! Evidence? Who cares about that? Coroner’s reports? Who needs them? Secrets are being kept! That’s what gays’ families do!

But hold on a minute. I’m gay. I’ve been sleazy in my time, but since when has a consensual sex life a bad thing for anyone – straight or gay. I’m also married, and I haven’t died yet. I’ve been married for nearly 4 years, been together with the same man for nearly 8, but I’m confused what this ‘happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships’ is. Where did it come from? Is it spread round the watercoolers at the Daily HateMail? Was it something Tony Blair evangelised about one day when drunk?

Enough. This vile homophobia must be smashed. Complain about this odious cow to the Press Complaints Commission here. Article 12 of the code has been pretty thoroughly breached, and she and the HateMail must pay a price. Far be it from me to suggest a flashmob outside the Daily HateMail, where we all tear up copies of the rag (but who’s with me?) A retweet from Charlie Brooker says it all I feel:

RT @disappointment: Jan Moir manages to walk the difficult tightrope between being a bitch and a cunt http://bit.ly/1GGI4S

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