Bradley Manning: Fairy Tales Of New York Magazine

"A recent article by Steve Fishman in New York Magazine trots out more salacious gossip about Bradley Manning's sexuality, in what is now a sustained media campaign to discredit the military whistleblower. On foot of the Fishman article, WL Central examines the more insidious aspects of this trend.

"Bradley Manning's sexuality is irrelevant. For anyone who has read the logs purporting to document his confession, his professed motives were plain. If he is guilty of blowing the whistle, he clearly blew the whistle on conscientious grounds. His sexual identity is irrelevant to this. If he did not blow the whistle, his sexuality is equally irrelevant.
"His sexuality is irrelevant, but what is becoming relevant is how assiduously the press have focused on it. The issue has become seperate from the story of Manning's alleged involvement with Wikileaks. Since Ginger Thomson's Bradley Manning piece in August last year, mainstream media coverage of the issue has created and reinforced an alternative history of the Manning case, wherein his actions were the pathological outcome of a deeply psychologically troubled individual, recklessly breaking protocol in a fit of indulgent self-realization..."

The Homophobic Smearing Of Bradley Manning, x7o, WikiLeaks Central.
The New York Magazine article has really got people fired up - see below.
Fagburn was wondering if Fishman is gay - all I do know is he doesn't write much about gay issues.
I also think the piece seemed pretty dodgy but was meant to be supportive.
And while I agree Manning's sexuality is irrelevant to whether to he's innocent or guilty, as I've written on here before the way some supporters of Bradley Manning go nuts when a profile mentions it often seems homophobic.
How can you tell someone's life story without mentioning it?
But it's late, so I'll write more on this tomorrow...

UPDATE: Okay, my thoughts in short: Yes, "gossip" shouldn't affect how we feel about Bradley Manning's case, but mentioning he's gay in a profile is not "crypto hate speech". Though I agree it's often introduced as part of a "crazy bitter queen" narrative. The Guardian video The Madness Of Bradley Manning? being a (im)perfect example.
But Bradley's story just doesn't make sense unless you know that he's gay...