After two days of hearings, the Advisory Committee of Blood Safety and Availability decided against recommending a change in restrictions on blood donations by gay men, but did propose, almost as an afterthought, research that might eventually enable some currently barred men to give blood. By a vote of 9-6, the committee members opted to keep intact a policy enacted in 1983 that bans any man who has ever has sex with another man since 1977 from ever giving blood, the policy put into place at the height of the HIV/AIDS hysteria when little was known about the virus. The committee did acknowledge that the current system is “suboptimal” because it allows “some potentially high risk donations while preventing some potentially low risk donations.” For example, a heterosexual man or woman who has had sex with someone with HIV is only required to defer blood donations for one year. Canada has similar ban on blood donations by gay and bisexual men.
This weekend in Washington, D.C. organizers of the Capital Pride Festival, the Virginia Partisans, the state’s largest gay rights group, will ask parade going to “kiss” a life-size cut out of Virginia’s anti-gay Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in an event titled Smooches for the Cooch. Cuccinelli is on record as contending that homosexuality is “a detriment to our culture” and “wrong.” The Virginia Partisans will send a collection of photographs of people kissing Cuccinelli to the attorney general along with the message that Virginia is for all lovers, not just straight ones.
Bert – of Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie – outed himself today, via Twitter. Seriously, he did.
Kellan Lutz takes off shirt yet again, this time for Men’s Health.
Taylor Lautner apparently does not own a shirt.
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