School Breaks With Feds Over Gay Rights

Instead of boycotting, gay students recruit substitute blood donors

(NEWSER) - Several San Francisco-area campuses have banned blood drives to protest federal policies preventing sexually active gay men from donating blood, but at UC-Berkeley, students are making a point without resorting to boycotts. Instead of withholding blood on grounds the 25-year-old FDA rule is discriminatory, Cal is encouraging gay students to recruit eligible donors to give for them, the Oakland Tribune reports. More»

1985 ban out of date, advocates argue

(NEWSER) - A quarter-century after the US started barring gay men from donating blood, Department of Health and Human Services experts are deciding whether to lift the lifetime ban, HealthDay News reports. The policy was instituted in 1985, as public consciousness of HIV/AIDS grew. "There was good reason for it, based on the testing technologies we had at the time," says an AIDS activist. More»

John Kerry leads group urging FDA to end 'discriminatory' policy

(NEWSER) - John Kerry and 17 other Senate Democrats are calling on the FDA to end the 27-year-old ban on blood donations by gay men. The policy barring any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 dates to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. It “was once considered medically justified,” Kerry says, but now is "simply outdated and needs to end, just as last year we ended the travel ban.” More»

(NEWSER) - Gay AIDS activists in Senegal are fleeing a mob that vows to turn them into "fish food," GlobalPost reports. Arrested late last year, the nine activists were sentenced to 8-year terms for “indecent acts against nature," but an appeals court freed them early this week. Now social conservatives plan to hunt them down. “In our society, homosexuality will never be accepted,” said one religious leader and lawmaker. More»

... But conservatives, gays can't figure it out

(NEWSER) - At age 8, Andrew Sullivan asked his mother if God really was omniscient. Her affirmative reply terrified him: “Then there’s no hope for me, Mum.” Despite his success, conservatives, Catholics, and gay activists might agree—even though he belongs to each of their constituencies, Johann Hari writes in a More Intelligent Life profile of his friend and model-turned-blogger. More»