See the Obama Administration’s Food & Drug Administration citation of the statistics above: http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/QuestionsaboutBlood/ucm108186.htm

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GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
Grand Rapids, Michigan
June 28, 2010

Red Cross, blood centers lobby to
end ban on gay men donating blood

by Ted Roelofs

Tim Heacock, 24, stands outside the Michigan Blood donor center at 1036 Fuller
Ave. NE. He wants to be a blood donor but can’t, because current policy bans him
for life because he is gay.

Back in high school, Tim Heacock was proud to give blood.

“I think it’s something a good citizen would want to do,” Heacock said.

But that was before Heacock, who is gay, became sexually active.

And as such, he is now banned for life from giving blood. Heacock, the American Red Cross and other blood organizations think it’s time to change that policy.

“I am deeply angered by it,” said Heacock, 24, a graduate student at Grand Valley State University.

“It is something I want to do for my fellow countrymen. I want to help, but I am being told I can’t for very archaic reasons.”

Despite the urgings of the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers and politicians including Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a government health committee voted earlier this month to keep the lifetime ban in place.

Cheryl Bremer, CEO of the American Red Cross of Greater Grand Rapids is “not happy” about that decision.

“Our stand is that we will continue to fight for impartiality while striving to maintain a good safe blood supply for us. We don’t have to have that fear. There is probably a whole lot more education that has to happen around what makes the blood supply safe.”

Proponents of the ban disagree. They assert the issue is not fear — but safety.

“That anyone dares suggest lifting this policy and intentionally exposing Americans to a dramatically increased risk of potentially fatal disease is evidence of a politically correct insanity that borders on criminal negligence,” said Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan.

Glenn cited statistics that affirm that sexually active male homosexuals have HIV infection rates far higher than the general population.

According to the Centers for Disease control, the rate of new HIV diagnosis among gay males is more than 44 times that of other men.

“We strongly support the (committee) vote to maintain the ban and marvel only that there were any votes at all to lift it and knowingly expose Americans to greater risk of infection,” Glenn said.

After two days of testimony, an advisory committee to the Department of Health and Human Services voted 9 to 6 to retain a ban that has been in place more than 20 years.

The guidelines were put in place before HIV/AIDS screening tests were available, and were designed to target subgroups deemed to pose the greatest risk for the spread of AIDs.

But today’s improved testing techniques have led more experts to question the lifetime ban.

The American Red Cross and America’s Blood Centers, in a joint statement, called the ban for gay men “medically and scientifically unwarranted.” The two organizations account for about 90 percent of the nation’s blood supply.

According to the Red Cross, the current “window period” from the time an individual is infected and the time screening tests detect infection ranges from nine days for HIV, seven days for hepatitis C and up to 38 days for hepatitis B.

But a statement by Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the nation’s blood supply, questions the absolute reliability of such tests.

“HIV tests currently in use are highly accurate, but still cannot detect HIV 100 percent of the time,” it stated.

“It is estimated that the HIV risk from a unit of blood has been reduced to about 1 per 2 million in the USA, almost exclusively from so called “window period” donations.

“During this time, a person is infected with HIV, but may not have made enough virus or developed enough antibodies to be detected by available tests. For this reason, a person could test negative, even when they are actually HIV positive and infectious,” it stated.

Replacement of the lifetime ban by a one-year deferral would yield an additional 89,000 additional pints annually, according to a study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

The policy dates back to the 1980s, when fear about HIV and the AIDS epidemic was peaking. It states that a man who had sex with another man even once since 1977 is permanently barred from donating blood.

Critics call the lifetime ban hypocritical. They note there is only a one-year ban for a heterosexual man who had sex with an HIV-positive woman, sex with a prostitute or sex with multiple partners.

“Our stance is that it is not fair to the gay community that wants to donate blood,” said Monica Stoneking, communications director for the Great Lakes Region of the American Red Cross.

“We are basing everything on research and potential risk.”

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/06/red_cross_blood_centers_lobby.html
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ILLINOIS FAMILY INSTITUTE
Carol Stream, Illinois
June 2, 2010

Obama proclaims June LGBT Pride Month
by Laurie Higgins, Director
IFI Division of School Advocacy

Once again, Barack Obama has affirmed his commitment to radical, subversive change; his sycophancy to the homosexual lobby; and, implicitly, his embrace of heresy. He has already signed into law the dangerously flawed “Hate Crimes” bill, declared his intent to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act, and committed to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Then on May 28, 2010 Obama issued the following proclamation:

(Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender) Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life. From business leaders and professors to athletes and first responders, LGBT individuals have achieved success and prominence in every discipline. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our friends and neighbors. Across my Administration, openly LGBT employees are serving at every level….

I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2010 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

Joe Carter writing on the First Things blog seeks further clarity from Obama:

Perhaps he could explain how bisexuals-because of their bisexuality-have enriched America and how transgendered-because or their transgendered orientation-have have strengthened the “fabric of our national life.” In other words, maybe he could explain why alternative forms of “gender identity or sexual orientation” are something we should celebrate at the national level.

Also, I’d really love to see a few names of the transgendered folks-people who may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual-who are “serving at every level” of his administration. By my count he has exactly one example.

Obama wants all Americans to “recognize the immeasurable contributions of LGBT Americans,” insisting that “LGBT Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life.”

No sane person would ever argue that homosexuals have contributed nothing to society. That’s as absurd as claiming that adulterers, porn users, or gossips have contributed nothing to society.

But the sexual impulses and sexual behavior of homosexuals and cross-dressers are irrelevant to their contributions. Therefore, making irrelevant characteristics the central focus of “Pride” month as Obama did is absurd. More important, the particular irrelevant characteristics that Obama has chosen to highlight are, in the view of many, disordered and immoral.

Those who experience, for example, selfish, vain, greedy, gluttonous, deceitful, promiscuous, incestuous, sadistic, pederastic, gossipy, philandering, or polyamorous impulses and engage in behaviors impelled by such impulses have also contributed to society. How would Americans respond if the president were to proclaim June “Polyamory Pride Month”? Substituting another irrelevant and morally questionable characteristic for homosexuality brings into sharper relief the dubious nature of Obama’s proclamation.

Joe Carter emphasizes this point:

Presumably all of these Americans who have “enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life” have other characteristics besides their sexual orientation. They are men and women, black and Asian, right-handed and left-handed, etc. So what is the purpose of using their sexual identification as a marker if it has no bearing on their accomplishments?

Imagine if we swapped out “LGBT” for “left-handed white people” in his proclamation: “Left-handed white Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life. From business leaders and professors to athletes and first responders, left-handed white individuals have achieved success and prominence in every discipline. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our friends and neighbors. Across my Administration, openly left-handed, white employees are serving at every level.”

Now if Obama has said this you’d probably say it was a bit silly, even a tad bit racist. Why in the world would we need to praise people for traits that have no bearing on either their achievements or their worth as individuals?

All mature people understand that fallen, sinful humans also do good acts and make positive contributions to society because fallen, sinful people are all that the world has. There exists nothing but fallen, sinful people who experience disordered impulses and engage in immoral behaviors. We don’t honor our fellow men and women for those impulses and behaviors; we honor them for their good deeds.

It is justifiable to single out for special attention the accomplishments of a group defined by characteristics that carry no behavioral implications open to moral assessment and whose contributions are overlooked because of society’s ignorance or bigotry, like African Americans or the disabled. But homosexuality is not ontologically equivalent to race or disability, and volitional homosexual conduct is a legitimate object of moral assessment.

Obama is using his power, his position, and this proclamation to make a fallacious association between good deeds and homosexuality. It is an exploitative stratagem to normalize homosexuality. Associate homosexuality with something positive like creativity, compassion, or self-sacrifice, and eventually the good feelings society has for creativity, compassion, or self- sacrifice will be (irrationally) transferred to homosexuality or cross-dressing.

It’s critical to understand the fallacious assumptions embedded in Obama’s declaration because these assumptions are promoted in many societal contexts, including public education. Homosexuals are not a category of humans in the same sense that racial minorities are a category of humans. Homosexuality is a sin disposition–not a morally neutral condition like skin color. When homosexuals have contributed something of value to society, those contributions should be noted. Their sexual predilections, however, are worthy of neither honor nor mention.

My sense and the sense of those who are similarly engaged in the cultural debate about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder is that far too many conservatives refuse to participate in this critical debate for a number of reasons, including an unbiblical and selfish unwillingness to experience persecution (aka cowardice); an unbiblical unwillingness to experience righteous anger; and a (perhaps willful) ignorance of the cultural implications of their indefensible passivity even as perversion is promoted as righteousness through our public schools, courts, legislatures, news media, entertainment industry–and even the highest elective office in the United States.

http://www.illinoisfamily.org/news/contentview.asp?c=34903
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