(no subject)

Health Canada has decided to exclude gay men from donating organs. Here's a link. We cannot even give an organ to a friend or relative. This joins the ban on gay blood and gay sperm (the latter of which, frankly, smacks of eugenics).

The worst of it is that every self-loathing, hand-wringing gay conservative has come out of the woodwork defending the policy, on the grounds that gay men are the group most likely to have AIDS.

But for all that, putting human rights on the altar of pragmatism won't even make the blood supply safe. It's risky sexual activity that you should be screening for -- including risky heterosexual behaviour. The question that needs to be asked is, "Have you had penile sex without a condom in the last six months?"

That question will never be asked, though. It can't be asked, because if it were, the blood and organ supply would dry up.

It's the elephant in the room when it comes to sex, AIDS, blood, and organs. Most gay men I know practice safe sex even in monogamous relationships -- even when they've been together for years. No heterosexual woman I've ever discussed sex with did the same -- the ones I've talked to about this considered "safe sex" to be "with birth control." One woman I spoke to online said she'd rather die than question her husband's fidelity.

And that, my friends, is part of the reason why heterosexual women are the fastest-growing demographic.

Given the other option of trying to change the sexual behaviour of heterosexuals, Health Canada has chosen for the much easier route of a purely cosmetic change in policy that rehashes the old stereotype of gay men and AIDS. It gives the supply an appearance of safety, and if it demonizes a minority, then so be it.

It'll probably take another tainted blood scandal for us to realize that it isn't actually working.