Michael Gove: Friend As Foe

The Observer profiles education secretary, Michael Gove today.
Of course what profiler could resist mentioning that Gove once shacked up with two notorious homosexuals?
"He attacked homophobia long before that became mainstream Tory thinking and flat-shared for a while with [Nicholas] Boles, whom Gove met while playing a priest in a film directed by a mutual friend, an early glimpse of the unexpected cultural hinterland he still cultivates, and the financier Ivan Massow, both openly gay."
And yes, Mr Gove has been very good on the gay stuff - here is an item on Gay Pride and gay rights for Newsnight back in 1993, back when we were still battling Section 28 and an unequal age of consent - policies his party doggedly adhered to.
Here he rails against homophobia in The Times in 2003.
I could have chosen many other examples.
And, since you're wondering, although Michael Gove is not the world's most masculine man, I get the feeling he's not gay (and he is married) and would have come out if he was.
This week Michael Gove's government released a white paper, The Importance Of Teaching.
It has been criticised as "a hotch potch" combining plans to create an elite of independent schools with populist nonsense like bringing in soldiers to teach.
But it did stress the importance of tackling anti-gay bullying.
Michael Gove said;
"Homophobic bullying is on the rise in our schools, and homophobic terms are increasingly used towards gay students and straight students in a way that seeks to undermine the tolerance that we have built up over the past 15 years. We therefore need to work with organisations such as Stonewall and the Anti-Bullying Alliance, and to shine the light on schools such as St George’s Church of England school, which has done a fantastic job in tackling homophobic bullying. This requires work not only by school leaders but by political leaders and all of society to tackle a growing prejudice that is scarring our tolerant society.”
This is a new paradox for progressives; that someone like Mr Gove can be so supportive of lesbians and gay men, and yet otherwise be such a right-wing shitbag.
Truly, we live in strange and mysterious times.