Nominations revealed for Stonewall Awards 2011

The nominations for the 2011 Stonewall Awards have been revealed with dramas such as Lip Service and Torchwood receiving nods as well as Matt Smith, Jessie J and Ben Cohen.

{jcomments off}The gay rights charity holds the awards to recognise those who have contributed towards gay culture/gay rights. The charity is a keen campaigner for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community.

In the Entertainer of the Year award The Only Way is Essex’s Harry Derbidge is up against bisexual singer Jessie J, Casualty actress Jane Hazelgrow and Christopher Plummer. Matt Smith is also nominated for his role in the BBC Two drama Christopher and His Kind which told the story of Christopher Isherwood’s time in Berlin during the 1930s. Broadcast of the Year see’s three BBC dramas up against two factual programmes.

Torchwood, whose fourth season recently concluded, is nominated. Torchwood: Miracle Day sparked anger amongst some fans when the UK broadcast of an episode cut out an explicit sex scene. However, by contrast a later episode upset Daily Mail readers because it featured gay kisses and a mild gay sex scene.  Also nominated in the category is BBC Three’s Lesbian drama Lip Service starring Heather Pearce and Ruta Gedmintas and BBC Two’s adaptation of The Night Watch which starred Anna Maxwell Martin and Claire Foy and was seen by three million viewers. Jamie’s Dream School is also nominated and Scott Mills documentary The World’s Worst Place to be Gay rounds off the category.

Publication of the Year see’s Nursing Standard, Derby Telegraph and People Management nominated alongside Guardian Weekend and SoSoGay.co.uk. Vanessa Feltz, Matthew Cain, Grizelda, Matthew Todd and Phil Reay-Smith are nominated for Journalist of the Year. Jodi Picoult is nominated, for Writer of the Year, for Sing You Home as is Eleanor Catton for The Rehearsal and Alan Hollinghurst for The Stranger’s Child. King of Badgers author Phillip Hensher and writer Ali Smith are also nominated.

Ruth Davidson, who has indicated she intends to stand in the Scottish Tory party leader race, is nominated for Politician of the Year. Labour’s Chris Bryant is also nominated. Bryant, along with a few other politicians, has been calling for a closer look into the activities of the News of the World for several years and long before more recent evidence came to light. Bryant has been a vocal critic of News International and the alleged activities of the Sunday tabloid. Tory MP Nigel Evans, who came out late last year as gay, is also nominated as is Helen Mary Jones and Jeremy Browne.

Openly gay sportsmen Anton Hysen and Steven Davies are nominated for Sportsperson of the Year as is gay rights campaigner Ben Cohen and the Lawn Tennis Association and The Gay Ourdoor Club. Lady Gaga is in the running for Hero of the Year while Stagecoach founder Brian Souter is amongst those nominated for Bigot of the Year. Souter recently, laughably, suggested that society might implode if gay marriage was legalised! He famously campaigned against the scrapping of Section 28 – which banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools – in 2000. Souter donated money to the campaign to keep the Section 28 which was known as Clause 2A in Scotland.

The winners of each category will be decided by a celebrity panel; which will include the likes of Eddie Mair and Hope Powell. The awards ceremony will be held on November 3rd in London and will be hosted by Stephen K Amos.