Equal Blood Donation Policy

To:  American Red Cross

American Red Cross,

It has come to my understanding that if you are a gay/bisexual male who has had sexual contact with another male even once since 1977 you are automatically at risk for HIV/AIDS and therefore automatically ineligable for donating blood. Huh? This policy is not only insulting to the intelligence of all citizens of Earth who are aware of the dangers of HIV/AIDS as a serious sexually transmitted disease that effects not only homosexual/bisexual males and females, but also heterosexual males and females, it is discriminatory to the LGBT community as a whole because you are disallowing a certain peoples to participate in a potentially life saving organization based solely on the fact that the person is male, and has had, even once, sex with another male.

I understand the risk of HIV/AIDS and yet it has also come to my knowledge that people are capable of using protection at every cost. This disease is not only scary but effective and it seems wrong to lump together people who have AIDS and me who have sex with men because it is totally unnecessary and unethical to place this disease on the shoulders of one type of peoples when this syndrome effects nearly the widest range of peoples in the world from white homosexual men to children in a poor African village to a heterosexual Japanese couple.

As a bisexual male i am appalled by this type of action and i am asking that the American Red Cross change this policy so that it is no longer discriminatory against homosexuals/bisexuals rather, and more appropriately discriminatory against peoples with HIV/AIDS, as hypocritical as it seems. With what we know of the transference of this disease, blood transfusions are a leading cause of the spread of this disease and as such, infected peoples should not be allowed to give blood to prevent the spread of this disease any further.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Equal Blood Donation Policy Petition to American Red Cross was created by and written by Steven Walsh (diablodelmundo@yahoo.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.