Rep. Mike Quigley: Healthy Gay Men Should Not Be Banned from Donating Blood

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conflates homosexuality and pedophilia. Wow.
Betty, what do you think about the fact that the FDA considers high-risk heterosexual behavior, such as having sex with numerous prostitutes 13 months or more ago, to be lower risk than experimenting ONCE with homosexuality 30 years ago? To you, which of those two better fits the billing of being "gross, twisted and very unclean?"

anonymous 5:04PM September 27, 2010

How sad to be willing to watch someone die. No one is advocating denying you blood if you should need it, gay or not. This is partly about people with little or no risk of Aids exposure in their lives wanting to keep the blood supply as safe as possible. Get over your hate... I'm a "breeder" and though I may or may not agree with your lifestyle I would not want to watch you bleed out just to spite you.

Bob of SD 12:42PM July 28, 2010

I'm well aware that people lie...but again, technically it's illegal (I'd bet that Kansas is one of the 34 states that could charge you with a felony, although in practice, the only case it could be easily enforced is if a prominent disqualified figure like Magic Johnson or Barney Frank attempted to donate blood, or if someone had a grudge against you and decided to rat you out.)

anonymous 4:11PM July 27, 2010

Doesn't anyone realize that we (gay men) lie anyway...we want the FREE cookies!!! :)

Steve of KS 1:42PM July 27, 2010

I'll give my blood to anyone gay but the breeders can bleed out. I will never give anything to the breeders! Let them bleed.........

Jiff of FL 3:42AM July 27, 2010

"Get it through your think [sic] skull, American's [sic] don't want to take the same risk you folks do. We go to the hospital to get well, not to contract a [sic] terminal diseases"
Where do you draw the line, David? Should the wife of a man who experimented once with being gay in 1978 count as one of "those folks" and be essentially forbidden from donating blood, unless she lied and committed a felony? As for the man mentioned--is there a point where bygones should be bygones, and if no diseases have shown up, he should be able to donate as well? (Numerous European countries have such a deferral period, although the US and, amazingly, Canada, do not.)
"No one asks a hetero blood donor how many sex partners they've had in a month/year, before they can donate blood...But this law assumes that because you're gay, you're promiscuous, when there are just as many heteros who are promiscuous and may or may not practice safe sex."
Jarrell--There are an assortment of questions that do restrict high-risk heterosexual behavior, but few of them are the lifetime bar that one instance of male homosexual contact since 1977 is. (One such lifetime bar is if you have ever been a prostitute-although soliciting a prostitute is a one year ban.)
Curiously enough, if you have heterosexual sex with someone you full well know has HIV, you only get a one-year ban!

anonymous 7:00PM July 26, 2010

I am in a "traditional" marriage and monogamous.
I understand about the statistically higher likelihood of having AIDS tainted blood in gay donors, but this law is prejudicial/homophobic profiling.
No one asks a hetero blood donor how many sex partners they've had in a month/year, before they can donate blood. It's "Thank you much, here's your orange juice, don't stand up too fast for awhile."
But this law assumes that because you're gay, you're promiscuous, when there are just as many heteros who are promiscuous and may or may not practice safe sex.

Jarrell of WV 4:56PM July 26, 2010

There is a part of me that just screams, "Who needs this country, anyway?" If they don't need my blood then fine. If they don't want us in society then fine. America will just continue going down the tubes as it attacks gays and lets them suffer.

JJ of IL 3:55PM July 26, 2010

Get it through your think skull, American's don't want to take the same risk you folks do. We go to the hospital to get well, not to contract a terminal diseases.
It's not an issue of discrimination, but rather one of sanity and logic.

david of ID 3:37PM July 26, 2010

Regularly sexually active gays may be a completely different story, but at least close the loophole which, technically, bars men who experimented once when they were 18, and effectively bars their girlfriends or wives.
(Yes, you can lie, and it's difficult to get caught--although 34 states have felony laws on the books to prosecute blood donation liars, 3 have misdemeanor laws, and Canada--yes, that Canada, the gay-friendly one, has actively litigated against liars; google Kyle Freeman Canada. I absolutely think that if a conviction could be easily obtained for many cases of polluting the blood supply, it should--if Magic Johnson tried to donate blood, for instance, I think anyone in charge of a blood drive would and should ask him to leave. However, the law as it's currently written opens the door for overzealous prosecutors.)
All you have to do is rewrite the questions to say something like "Have you had sex with a man even once since 1977, excluding isolated one-time incidents?" and "Are you a woman who in the past year has had sex with a man who fits the previous question?" Or you can use the one-year deferral for the first question as well; it would allow the men who experimented once to donate without lying. (It puzzles me that people always responded to this by simply saying "but no gay man is capable of being celibate for a year!" when, putting aside the stereotypes that statement also carries, it doesn't take account the men who experimented once when they were young.)

anonymous 2:49PM July 26, 2010