The ongoing discrimination case against Australia's Red Cross continues – and the organization's allies keep offering outlandish arguments against allowing gay blood donors.
Yes, even more ridiculous than the "screening takes too much time" defense:
US professor Dr Paul Holland, a former blood source executive testifying for the Red Cross, claimed even digital penetration of the nose or ear would justify the lifetime ban his country imposes on gay men."That would usually be sufficient to exchange fluid and qualify as sex,†Dr Holland told the Tribunal. When asked if that included gay men who had done nothing more than kissing, Holland replied, “Yes, sir, because they increase their chance of transmitting an infection such as HIV.
Wait, wait – haven't we all been taught that kissing doesn't transmit HIV?
Unless, you know, you drink like 2 gallons of someone's saliva, or something. So, Holland's testimony isn't simply wrong, it's dangerous.
[Image: "Kiss" by Robert Richards.]
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So if I stick my finger in someone's ear, I've had sex with them? Well THIS will certainly make my lifetime average go up considerably!
This bigotry is the closet we gays are forced to hide in. Everyone can get hiv. Why not ban us all? Obviously the need for blood is so little they are able to exclude minority groups for little or no reason at all. Isn't alone screened regardless of who it came from? All this must be is old prejudice hiding behind new excuses. Disgusting. We live in an ever more liberal world but we still hold ourselves back with silly issues like this?
Yours confused and mildly angry,
Ethan from NZ.