THEGAYUK

Tag: Editor’s Letter

Read the latest Editor’s letter.

  • OPINION | Straight allies do not need a pride flag

    OPINION | Straight allies do not need a pride flag

    You’re kidding me right? There’s a Straight Allies flag? Straight people do not need a flag for pride.

    filmbetrachterin / Pixabay

    There’s been a colourful explosion of flags and colours for the LGBT+ community in recent years – something that I’m in two minds about. On one hand, it’s great that groups within our community are getting visibility – and some of those flags are pretty darn pretty – I’m looking at you Alternative Transgender, but on the other hand, it’s very divisional.

    So, you’ve got the:

    Rainbow, Lesbian,  Lipstick Lesbian, Trans, Bear, Bi, Non-Binary, Genderqueer, Pansexual, Polysexual, Asexual, Agender, genderfluid, alternative intersex and intersex – just to name a few

     

    ALSO READ: Test your knowledge – how well do you know your Pride Flags

     

    What’s beautiful about the rainbow flag is that it’s every colour. Everyone is represented – well that’s the idea. Since 1978 it’s been the symbol of inclusivity.

    I often hear people say “it’s the gay pride flag” but actually it’s the LGBT+ flag, that beautiful, international symbol we all know, love and recognise. It’s the little wink or nod when you’re in a new city or country that says “this place is welcoming and safe”.

    But over this pride season, whilst at a couple of pride events, I was asked a number of times, “where’s the straight ally colours?”.

    I didn’t even know there was one. As I was being explained the colours of the “Straight-Ally” (apparently black and white with a rainbow “A”) flag, my mind began to wander. Do straight allies need a flag? I mean what’s the message behind it?

    Whilst I love all our straight allies and know that we couldn’t have come this far in equality and societal acceptance without them – you really don’t need a separate flag.

    The last time I looked, no straight person was being killed, shot at, bullied, segregated, marginalised because of their allegiance to the LGBT community. Actually, it’s pretty darn insulting when you think of it. Isn’t it’s saying, rather visually, “I’m Straight – at your pride, but hey don’t worry, I’m totally for you, look at me, I’m special – straight and accepting?”

    Being a straight ally is a basic requirement of any decent human.

    I’m not sure why straight allies even need to point out their heterosexuality at an LGBT pride? Does that strike you as odd?

    They get to play straight every day of the year – so why do it on pride?

    I don’t see the need of someone who identifies as a “straight ally”  to be visibly ‘straight’ on our own turf on the one day of the year that the LGBT community gets to be its true self.

    What I actually need, is our straight allies doing their straight ally work in their own spaces. No straight ally should rest until every workplace,  home,  school – is free of inequalities or homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. That’s where our straight allies are kings and queens.

    So straight people, If you really feel you need to pick up a flag on Pride, pick up a rainbow – and wave it proudly. Don’t separate yourself from us.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, it’s management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • EDITOR’S | Orlando gunman took our last safe space

    EDITOR’S | Orlando gunman took our last safe space

    On the 12th June, the lives of countless people changed forever as a lone gunman walked into a gay bar in Orlando and shot 49 people dead and injured 53 more. It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in America’s history and it was the worst atrocity visited upon the LGBT community this century.

    For days after I couldn’t bring myself to read about the tragic events. Like many of you reading this, I have been in a gay club at last orders and when the fluorescent house lights blast on to send us, drunkenly blinking into the early morning on our merry way home. To imagine the horrifying scenes unfolding was, and is still, just too much to bear.

    I was in the US when the attack happened. I was enjoying a gay street festival in one of Chicago’s gay-friendly neighbourhoods. There was laughter, there was joy and there was a real community spirit. Despite hardly knowing anyone at the festival, I was made to feel welcome, I was quickly made to feel part of ‘the club’. I imagine this to be the spirit that was in Pulse that night. That joy will be now forever tinged with sorrow and fear. As a friend so eloquently put it to me, just hours after the attacks, “f***ers… now they’ve taken away the only safe spaces we have.”

    Some in the media were hesitant in calling this a homophobic attack, but make no mistake it was a heinous homophobic attack. Right at the centre of the gay community. Gay bars and clubs have long been the heart of the community. Their history is undeniable. They bring people together, they are often the first place we feel able to be ourselves. Sure they can be the home of drama but they are always full of laughs, loves and the birthplace of our political movement.

    The gunman specifically went there to kill members of the LGBT community.

    Whatever the gunman’s motives; hatred of gay people, terrorism or internalised homophobia, his target was a safe space for LGBT people and their allies.

    Many of us felt that it was coming. An attack event against LGBTs was, you could argue, just a matter of time. The violence in Orlando had horrifying echoes of the terror attack in Paris last November. In fact after the attack on the Bataclan, which was chosen by the terrorists because it was where “hundreds of idolaters were together in a party of perversity”, I asked gay club and bar owners across London what their response to threat would be.

    Sadly no answers were forthcoming.

    So we have to keep our eyes and ears open and we must remain alert. We have to ensure our safe spaces remain open – wide open. We can’t let hate close us down. We can’t let hate shut our doors. Those 49 brothers, sisters, children, lovers and friends whose lives were brutally cut short will be forever etched in our hearts. They, like all victims of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic abuse will become one more link in our chain, one more stepping stone on our journey and one more reason to fight for equality and freedom across the world.

     

    This is taken from Issue 21 of THEGAYUK – download now for free or subscribe to never miss another issue.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • EDITORIAL | Why we’re not using MSM as substitute for gay or bisexual

    There’s been an increase in the usage of the initialism MSM and I’m stamping it out.

    The rise of the term MSM or Men Who Have Sex With Men is a fairly new trend and one I’m, as the editor of THEGAYUK is keen to stamp out.

    My first encounter with the term was in 2014, when a medical press release landed on my desk. At first, I didn’t really take much notice of it and we reported on the news as it was an important story about sexual health – something I’m very keen that THEGAYUK keeps its readers aware of (well the current government response seems woefully inadequate).

    However, the term stuck in my mind and the more I thought about it the more I hated it and felt it had to be dealt with – so I wrote back to the PR agency who sent the original press release and questioned them about it.

    The response was that the terms “gay” and “bisexual” weren’t reaching all the clients that they were hoping to reach – that “MSM” was more inclusive.

    I was told that there are many men, who have sex with men, who don’t consider themselves gay – or bisexual.

    To my mind, this is allowing closets and hiding spaces again after we have fought so hard to break these down. I’m passionate about living openly, honestly and being your true self and defining ourselves as a community. I appreciate that coming out as gay or bisexual can still be hard even in 2016, rebranding an entire community as MSM isn’t going to help it.

    If a man who is having sex with men, but doesn’t want to label himself as gay or bisexual, I doubt that he’ll gladly attach MSM as a label to himself. I’d argue that MSM actually is alienating those who have come out as gay or bisexual. It’s clunky, it’s purely sexual and it’s already a messaging service from Microsoft.

    I went to the readership and our writers to find out what they thought about the term – over 70 per cent of the readership who responded to our flash poll thought it was wrong to use and would prefer just plain old simple “gay” or “bisexual”.

    The word “gay” is under attack – it is being used in playgrounds, schools and workplaces as a pejorative term. People who are describing something stupid or dumb are calling it “gay” – and I’ve heard the argument that a word’s meaning can change over time, but when the word is a description of an entire community of people, who have, throughout history, been marginalised, criticised, ostracized and are in some part of the world still being criminalised for being gay or bisexual – I will not stand for the reduction, changing or erasure of the word gay. If you’re writing a press release to gay and bisexual men then write it.

    Use the words proudly.

    Being gay or bisexual is more than just sex. MSM makes it all about sex.

    Wouldn’t it be odd to start describing heterosexual people as an MWSWTOS (men and women who have sex with the opposite sex)? No, it isn’t happening and I feel that people would, quite rightly, have a problem with that term branded based solely on the type of sex you have?

    If the healthcare community wants to start engaging with the gay and bisexual community, I suggest they start treating us as humans.

    Stop assigning more letters and connect on a more human level. Being gay or bisexual isn’t offensive nor are those terms – so keep using them.

     

    This article has been updated since it was first published.

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • OP ED: Cameron had us believe that the Tories had changed but in the end… it’s just business as usual

    OP ED: Cameron had us believe that the Tories had changed but in the end… it’s just business as usual

    David Cameron painted a picture at the turn of this decade. The Conservatives were new, brand new and very gay-friendly. But as it stands we have three out of five PM candidates whose voting history on LGBT rights is deplorable (or non-existent) and two who have a fair weather relationship with the gay community.

    Painted as the party that brought in same-sex marriage, David Cameron would have had us believe that the Tories had finally changed.

    But it seems all he had actually created was the almost perfect veneer.

    Modern, forward thinking and accepting, but like all veneers, it’s what’s behind all that shine that really matters and what I’m seeing is rotten.

    With the departure of Cameron, we’re on the edge of having a country run by those who either wouldn’t vote on LGBT issues – so beneath them apparently is our humanity  that they wouldn’t even vote on life changing legislation, or those who, some might say are sheep in a wolf’s clothing, having had a long history of voting consistently against gay rights – and then almost like a light switch, all change, just like that.

    And while voting for equality for the LGBT community is commendable and admirable if it’s just lip service or a ploy to further career prospects – I’d rather not have you on our side. I’d rather deal with one face rather than two, at least you know where you stand.

    It’s becoming patently clear that same-sex marriage, the most historic piece of legislation this decade and one of the cornerstones of Cameron’s progressive Tories, was only won because of the coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.

    It might surprise you to find out that the majority of Conservative MPs voted against marriage equality including two of the current Prime Minister candidates: Stephen Crabb and Liam Fox. Michael Gove voted yes for gay marriage but then was absent for other key elements that would complete that equality.

    In total 136 Conservative MPs voted against the ability for gay and lesbian men and women to be treated equally under the law.

    Andrea Leadsom couldn’t be persuaded either way. She found parts of the new law “unacceptable” and abstained from the vote. In fact, she’s not voted on any LGBT legalisation since her 2010 induction to parliament.

    So here we are, five candidates, all vying for the top spot in Westminster. All of them have dubious voting, three of them clearly aren’t in our corner despite any backtracking they may have done in the past few days – and for this we, as a community, need to be worried.

    If nothing else the vote on the EU has lifted the lid on a Britain that many of us thought we’d left behind in the last century, we’ve had racial and homophobic tensions on the streets – with an increase of hate crime being reported, Brexit it seems, has given some on that side of the argument a feeling that open bigotry is acceptable.

    I’ve written to all five candidates about allaying legitimate fears our readers have put forward about LGBT protections as a new government forms – nearly 24 hours later – nothing.

    Like all veneers, the shine is only skin deep and eventually, it will crack. If we’re not careful it’s wholly possible that our rights, our freedoms could be rolled back.

     

    The opinions expressed in this comment piece may not reflect those of the management or editorial of THEGAYUK. If you’d like to write a comment or column for THEGAYUK click here.

  • COMMENT: Huff Post Queer Voices “Ooo I Do Feel Queer”

    COMMENT: Huff Post Queer Voices “Ooo I Do Feel Queer”

    So in a quest to become more “inclusive” editors at Huff Post’s LGBT news section have decided to call it Queer Voices. (more…)

  • LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: More than the sum of our parts

    This month, I happened to be invited to a sit down pasta/policy night with a well-known community leader. Around the table I was joined by five colleagues from the LGBT media.

    Yes, we are all individual and no we don’t all like Madonna, musicals or muscles, but there has to be something more than just the love of a certain type of genitalia that unites gay people. What about shared experience? Surely there’s a common understanding of what it feels to feel slightly out of the ‘norm’. We will never be the ‘norm’ just from a statistical point of view, we’ll always be a minority, doesn’t that imply a certain unity?

    Or what about the fear of coming out. Show me someone who has never feared coming out to anyone, and I’ll show you a liar.

    Haven’t we all watched a Hollywood movie with the perfectly presented heteronormative narrative and thought – “wow this does not apply to me in any shape or form?”

    But being gay does go deeper than willies and vaginas. Isn’t it about who we want to fall in love with? Isn’t love greater than that? Isn’t it about with whom we see ourselves growing old with? Isn’t it deeper than the sum of our parts?

    I find comfort in being and feeling part of something. A collective. A unified voice. That’s why pride parades can feel so incredible. All those voices – an incredibly powerful voice with an incredibly powerful message.

    We need to be a clear and strong community, to ensure our voices are still heard and that they continue to be heard. We may have almost legal equality, but there’s still a fight for acceptance and societal equality to be had.

    Enjoy the issue and as always please don’t forget to let us know what you think and rate us on Android and iTunes.

    Feel free to leave your comments below.

  • EDITORS LETTER | Porn Go On Admit It You Love It

    From the very first click of a camera, men, come on it’s always nearly men, were looking at ways to capture sexuality on film and from the first dark room developed photo to the naked selfie you took this morning, pornography is everywhere. It won’t surprise you to learn up to 37% of the net is porn and according to TopYenREVIEWS.com, it’s big business with over $3075.64 being spent on porn every second. Every 39 minutes a new porn movie is made in the US.

    Porn is a worldwide business. It seems that regardless of a country’s laws surrounding homosexuality, it doesn’t deter a midnight ramble on Google to find elicit images. The way in which we consume porn is rapidly changing.

    My first experience with porn was of an old discarded Playboy that some kid at play-scheme had discovered in the summer holidays. We’d sneak off to the woods and look at the battered, weathered pages, whilst drinking our Cherry Cokes and eating giant strawberries, marvelling at the nakedness in front of us…

    A little different to today’s kids who are viewing it on their way to school on the bus via their smartphones.

    Countries which repress homosexuality have actually found that gay porn is one of the most searched for terms. Interesting?

    So, here’s our very first porn issue, without being porny. In fact the only two phalluses you’ll find on these pages are of a dick shaped perfume bottle (we want) and the world’s largest Billy doll (we also want).

    We’ve interviewed 9 of the hottest porn stars around, at various stages of their careers. We probed and delved and may have had a look at their online presences too much. We also chat with Conor Maynard, Miranda Sings. Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Ian McKellen grace our pages for the first time. We also have Aaron Frew’s first Gay press interview.

    Why no peen? Well, we’re a little Victorian on the matter of willies here at THEGAYUK, sometimes the hint is better than the full thrust (actually that’s never true).

    The brand new issue of TheGayUK is available to download from Apple and Android stores.

    We hope you enjoy the show… Remember to keep your comments coming on our Facebook or Twitter.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • COMMENT | Why I Am Team Perez

    Okay, this may be slightly controversial, and by the time you read this the show will be over, but I am Team Perez Hilton. In what can only be described as the apex of Channel 5’s existence, Celebrity Big Brother has brought together the nation in a way that hasn’t happened in an age – and at the centre of this ‘community glue’ was the relationship between Perez and Katie Hopkins, Perez and Big Brother, Perez and the Great British public and Perez and himself.

    The outpouring of what I like to call homo-homophobia has been astounding. The hate from the ever expletive laden, venom filled tweets and Facebook posts levelled at Perez was disheartening and vile in itself. It wasn’t just the straights having a pop at the infamous celebrity self-proclaimed gossip queen, it was us gays. Even newly appointed LGBT Editor of Buzzfeed Patrick Studwick had a pop, calling him a ‘stain on the gay community’, and ‘a despicable human being’, sorry but who are you to make such an assertion?

    Yes, his claim that the isolation he felt was like ‘being diagnosed with AIDS in the early 80s’ was despicable, but clearly the man doesn’t have the words or the vocabulary to express himself in any other way than in shock-tactic American News-esque soundbites. The man has built his entire fame and brand from this.

    Why are we acting surprised, his offering has been out there for ten years? What he has to say is crass and often at times offensive, there’s no denying that, but look at his notorious blog, made famous with monosyllabic words and doodles drawn over the pictures of the rich and famous. Doesn’t that tell you a little bit about the man?

    Thousands of us took to social media to decry and effem-i-shame Perez. Many echoing that well-trodden sentiment that he puts back the gay community fifty years, thanks to Michelle Visage’s impassioned diary room moment. It’s the same line we use whenever a gay guy says or does something that isn’t the stereotypical heteronormative or ‘straight acting’ way we seem to like our community to act in the public arena, less we be judged to be lesser than human.

    You only have to look at the hate heaped on the likes of Louie Spence, Rylan Clark or Alan Carr to see that we do this all the time. If an openly gay guy doesn’t ‘act straight’ or ‘talk straight’, then he’s setting us back.

    Bulls**t.

    Well, he doesn’t, they don’t. Perez doesn’t put anyone back fifty years – only himself and after all it’s his life to lead.

    The only people putting us back fifty years are those who shame other guys for expressing themselves in the only way that they know, and if they’re putting it on as an act for their career then so be it, but they don’t represent us.

    The homo-homophobic’s disdain says more about our community than it does about Perez’s way of dealing with his surroundings. His attention-grabbing and self-centred view of the world isn’t anything to do with his sexuality, let’s not confuse the issues here.

    If we want to live in a world where we’re not judged for the people that we love, then we had better stop judging people for the way that they act. Every last overactive, poofy, queer boy, cross-dressing, non-binary, non-clone, bull dyke out there has the right to act and be however they like. If you don’t like it, then as Perez said, leave. For each of us have a colour in our fabulous rainbow.

    If you agree or disagree, take to our forum to have your say.

    So in this month’s issue we’re jam packed we have a Cucumber overload, which does sound painful, but we’ve got interviews with the cast of Russell T. Davies’s acclaimed new series, we have a word with Louie Spence and Joey Essex about their Jump experience, we share cocktails with RuPaul Drag Race’s reigning champ Bianca Del Rio and then there was Pam Ann. We also have an EXCLUSIVE with Barbara Hulanicki, famed iconic designer of the 60s who can call Cher, Twiggy and Freddie Mercury amongst her lifelong friends and clients.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • Why is Matt Barber focusing on anal sex and not Christian values?

    Some people just can’t let it go. Is Matt Barber is one of them? Forget what we’re doing with our bodies and concentrate on what you’re doing with your mind.

    Last year the author, lawyer and ex-pro boxer, Matt Barber, used a column in WND to tell gay teens that they were just a ‘means to an end’.

    Today he takes to the same publication to focus on ‘How The “Gay” Jihad Normalized A Filthy Practice’, and he definitely seems to know a lot about those gay ‘practices’.

    What an odd thought, such a mix of ideologies, but well done on mixing a Muslim war against unbelievers and gay people (and their allies) who are merely asking the government for equality.

    Within his article Barber calls homosexuals ‘pagan sexual jihadists’ and laments the poor Christian business owners who are ‘facing harsh government persecution for merely living out their faith.’

    Ah, it’s the Christian business owners that are facing persecution; we won’t mention at this point, Crusades, Inquisitions, ‘gay cure’ therapies or what women can or can’t do with their bodies all in the name of beliefs and faiths.

    Forgive me, I thought it was the ‘homosexualists’ who faced daily persecution and inequality around the world, but clearly I was wrong. I checked the same dictionary; homosexualist isn’t actually a word.

    Throughout Barber’s incoherent ramblings within the article, he arrives, I assume, to the crux of his issues. Anal.

    I have to ask why does he care?

    How does he know so much about the intimate acts between gay men?

    And, why just focus on gay men? Aren’t lesbians part of your rampage against the ‘homosexualists’?

    I’d like to take a moment to inform Barber and the rest of his audience, which he insists of ill informing, that not all gay men partake in anal sex.

    Some do, but so do some heterosexuals. In fact if you add up the number of straight people having butt sex and the entire homosexual community that do it, you’ll probably find that proportionally straights are having it more often than the gays and good for them. After all it’s their body.

    There are of course, the biological facts to look at here; but since Barber seems to know so much about sodomy, I’m guessing I don’t have to explain. We’ll ignore the fact that the male G-spot is placed inside his body, we’ll forget the fact that the anus is conveniently placed in a position that makes anal sex just as easy and accessible as vaginal intercourse. We’ll also forget the fact that women also enjoy anal intercourse too, and that not all sexual contact between heterosexuals has to end in conception.

    Barber’s references to the millions of homosexual men wasting away in hospices, and how the gay press has hidden them away, are just erroneous.

    The struggles that gay men faced during the 80s and 90s are still very much at the forefront of the gay media today, and continue to be the subject of many films, books and health campaigns by health services world over.

    Barber would be wise to check facts here, perhaps cast his eyes to the real statistics surrounding people living with HIV and AIDS. This just reinforces negativity toward the gay community from those who are far too uneducated on the matter.

    It’s articles like this one that perpetuate the issues that gay people face, but thankfully if one looks at the latest polls and trends on what society thinks on the matter of same-sex marriage, people like Matt Barber look more and more ridiculous as they position themselves on the wrong side of public opinion.

    Stop thinking about what the gay community does or doesn’t do in its bedrooms and start focussing on real Christian values of compassion and equality.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • OPINION | Gays Welcome Just Stay Away From Our Children

    In a vastly seemingly uneducated statement, and one that shows a complete lack of understanding, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin welcomes the gays to Russia, as long as we away from children.

    With all due respect Mr Putin, it’s a bit of an oxymoronic statement, to be honest. You’re welcome to come to our country – yet you’re basically calling the entire gay community child abusers, by lumping homosexuality and paedophilia in the same sentence – a sure fire way to induce a completely opposite response from welcoming on the streets of Russia.

    If all else fails trot out the ‘gays will harm/recruit/abuse our children’ (delete as appropriate) line. One that is highly offensive and shows a true lack of understanding of the facts.

    Despite the statistics show that heterosexuals are the most likely culprits of child abuse, Putin shows his true colours (a very grey rainbow) that he is incredibly uneducated on the matter of homosexuality and child abuse for that matter.

    Eventually, propaganda or no, gay children will turn into gay teens and will, yes eventually turn into gay adults. For you see Vladimir our sexuality is not a choice, but your misrepresentation of us is. No amount of persuasion by a gay adult will change a person’s mind about their sexuality, just as years of heterosexual propaganda does not effect the feelings of a gay person. It doesn’t matter how many times we gays see ‘traditional relationships’ in our day-to-day lives, we still turn out the way that we are. Which shows that sexual identity propaganda doesn’t work – and anyway how do you propagandise a child?

    A Homosexualist: Hello child – be gay!

    Child: No!

    A Homosexualist: Oh go on…

    Child: No!

    A Homosexualist: Can you spell Propaganda?

    Child: Can I have alphabeti spaghetti for tea?

    So gay people won’t be subjected to harassment at the Sochi Olympics next month, as long as we stay away from children – to be honest Putin’s statement doesn’t fill me with a warm fuzzy welcoming feeling. In fact it feels as though his welcoming statement is inciting wrongful judgement on gay people.

    “We do not have a ban on non-traditional sexual relationships,” said Putin in comments reported by Russian agencies. “We have a ban on the propaganda of homosexuality and paedophilia. I want to underline this. Propaganda among children. These are absolutely different things – a ban on something or a ban on the propaganda of that thing.”

    Sorry sir, but you have already harassed the overwhelming majority of us homosexuals who aren’t interested in children – or even talking about homosexuality to children. To me, that’s just warped and if you’re the person who jumps straight to that conclusion, perhaps that says more about you – than it does of me.

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • JAMES ARTHUR: ‘I’m Not A Homophobe Anymore’ – Forgive and Forget?

    I think we’ll be the judge of that James Arthur… Are we ready to forgive and forget?

    Disgraced former X Factor Winner James Arthur speaking at a gig, hopes his new single will be picked up by radio after the last single performed terribly, reaching number 19.
    Arthur hit the headlines last year after releasing a ‘diss’ rap containing anti-gay lyrics.
    During an Edinburgh gig, in which he introduced his new single Get Down, it is reported that he said:
    ‘This one will hopefully get played on the radio, cause I’m not a homophobe any more.’
    I mean it must be true, even Rylan Clark has defended the Impossible singer.
    What do you think? Forgive And Forget, or hold a grudge like a dog with a bone?

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.