That's not strictly true. EVERYONE who wants to give blood has to complete a questionnaire first which will be read over with you by a nurse before they even let you give a drop of blood. I'm unable to give blood, and it's not because I'm gay or sexually promiscuous (I am neither). It's actually because I'm iron deficient.

But I don't think that my having the same right to donate blood as everyone else is as important as the rights of the people who NEED that blood. They require safe, good blood with no risk of contamination and up until now, the possibility of contamination has always been the reason why homosexual men were not permitted to donate. Thankfully, recent science is proving that the blood is now safe. It's all about science, not equality.

It's not about isolating a group of people, its about protecting those who need the blood.

You can find out more about it here and a copy of the form and its questions are available here.

The reason why you can't give blood is because your blood is no good. That's not discrimination, as it's not based on an alleged possibility (i.e. 'your blood may not be good, because you're gay and everyone knows that AIDS is a gay disease').

Back in the 80s they labeled AIDS a 'gay disease', which is one of the main reasons why it took so long for action to be taken against it ('who cares about the gays? It's great that there's this disease whiping them out!'), and it spread as much as it did (affecting everyone, reagrdless of sexual orientation).

additionally the laws are stupid.   because anyone can just lie about their sexual activity when giving blood.   and those most at risk are the "straight" guys, the kinds that oppress and deny themselves, then end up in risky situations like having sex in public bathrooms or parks.  the kinds that also arent likely to admit they fuck guys and perhaps even would use the blood donation system to secretly get themselves then tested.    how do these laws protect against these people?   people in this thread are talking like every third gay person has aids and they all get together for giant community orgies every weekend.   im sure that stds are of greater concern to the average sexually active homosexual than they are to the average sexually active heterosexual who almost always only use a condom to prevent pregnancy.  and last i saw about STD rates in the US they were most prevalent among straight young black women.  so i guess we should just ban black people as well.  at least they cant lie about that one. 

the system doesnt get enough donations to just exclude perfectly perfectly healthy responsible people.

I wasn't alive in the 80's but I'm guessing they weren't as "politically correct" back then and didn't have all the gay pride shit we have now. It was just a different time period, not use calling something from 30 years ago homophobic. Just be glad we're a lot less homophobic now as a society. 

Just look how far blacks have come. 150 years ago they were slaves, 50 years ago we openly through around the N word and segregated blacks from the rest of society, and nowadays blacks are better off than white people thanks to affirmative action and white guilt. Just think maybe in another 50 years gays will be not only equal but superior in socity to straights! 

I think there were gay pride parades in the 80s. And I don't see why I can't call people from 30 years ago homophobic. That's like saying that you can't call people who enslaved blacks racists. The fact that it was a different time period doesn't change what they were.