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Gay News; X Factor winner Joe McElderry has been nominated in the Hero of the Year category in the fifth annual Stonewall Awards.
By: Nigel Robinson
Joe McElderry came out tihis year
Joe McElderry came out tihis year
Joe McElderry up for Stonewall Hero of the Year Award.
20 September 2010
The nineteen-year who came out this year joins fellow nominee rugby player Gareth Thomas who came out the previous year in the annual Stonewall awards which celebrate those people who have made a positive contribution to gay people in the UK.
They are joined on the list by sports presenter and journalist Clare Balding; Kath Gillespie Sells, founder of Regard, a campaigning group for disabled LGBT people; and Doctor Jeffrey John, the Dean of Saint Albans who was rejected for appointment as the Bishop of Southwark because of his sexual orientation.
Sunday Times journalist A. A. Gill has been nominated as Bigot of the Year for his personal attack on Clare Balding as a “dyke on a bike”.
Also nominated as Bigot of the Year are novelist Frederick Forsyth for his dismissal in the Daily Express of gay asylum seekers facing persecution in their own country; MP Chris Grayling who as shadow Home Secretary suggested B&B owners should have the right to bar gay couples; and Suzanne Wilkinson, the owner of a Berkshire guest house who illegally turned away a gay couple saying that it was against her convictions of two men to share a bed.
The Hero of the Year and Bigot of the Year Awards, plus the Stonewall Community Group are chosen by Stonewall members across the country.
The other seven awards – including Writer and Entertainer of the Year – will be chosen by a panel of judges which includes radio and TV presenter Paddy O’Connell and author Sarah Waters.
The winners will be announced by TV presenter and comedian Sue Perkins at the 2010 Stonewall Awards ceremony at London’s V&A Museum, on Thursday 4 November 2010.
Tickets can be booked from www.stonewall.org.uk/awards
