Gay Men Should Be Allowed To Donate Blood

“A man who has had sex with another man within the last five years, whether oral or anal sex, with or without a condom or other form of protection, is not permitted to donate blood and must please not do so.”

This was the statement issued last Thursday by a spokesman from the South African National Blood Service (SANBS).

This statement had caused a huge dispute between the SANBS and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GLA)

Every newspaper has headline after headline about this new topic, every news update on all radio stations, every news program on the television, everybody is talking about this latest disruption in our some-what peaceful lives.

The GLA states that on Friday, the day after the statement was made, they donated gay blood, some newspapers claim that 120 units were given, another says over 600 units were donated, all the stories are very conflicting, which one, if any, are we to believe?

A big question everyone is asking is that if they did donate gay blood, why did they if they were clearly asked not to, and when they did, it means they lied on the forms about their sexual activities. What good is this going to do anyone one may ask, but if you were in that situation, would you not do something about it to? If they suddenly decided that any white female is forbidden to donate blood, no matter what your HIV status is, would you not retaliate and cause a rebel?

This causes us to think, (for once), what the gay men did was wrong by donating their blood, but we cannot point fingers and judge them if we would have done the same.

What the SANBS is totally wrong, discrimination of any kind is against the law and yet they are blatantly doing it in front of the whole country, and world.

Way back when HIV and AIDS was first discovered, the gay men were the only ones that seemed to be infected with this disease, so at that time it was a reasonable rule to ban them from donating. But now we are in 2006 and every single gender, race, religion and group has been infected with HIV so to only ban gay men is unacceptable.