Bloodless Coup?

On the same day that the Food and Drug Administration issued a lifetime ban against gay men donating blood, I got an interesting e-mail from a reader whose office was in the midst of a company blood drive. Maybe you've been there too: the table's set up, the cookies are out, the nice volunteers are greeting people as you arrive to work, and then the uncomfortable questions begin.

Here's the scene one of my readers described yesterday:

We're having a blood drive here at work and the situation has gotten wildly out of control. Total strangers are coming up to people's desks and asking, "Why aren't you giving blood?"One of our senior managers, who didn't know gays weren't allowed to donate was basically outed in front of a dozen strangers in the lobby of our office building. We all agree that having a blood drive is a nice thing to do, but in typical corporate fashion, it's turned into a Gestapo interrogation.

I completely agree that it was handled horribly and have been put in a similar situation in various jobs over the years, although I will say people weren't nearly as aggressive as what I'm hearing happened over there. This has been going on for a very long time and it's time the Red Cross set up some new guidelines and restrictions for the people running the blood drives. It's bad enough we're ostracized from doing something charitable -- do we also have to feel victimized?

I can still remember in college getting into one of those blood drive trailers on the campus of Arizona State University as a young man (mainly to be near the frat boys running the thing, but still ...). I'll never forget the look of shear horror on their faces when I turned in that little questionnaire you had to fill out and two of my answers were "yes."

1. Do you weigh less than 110 pounds?
2. Are a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977?
3. Have you so much as thought of Haiti in your entire life? (Please leave now.)

(Cartoon source)