Christian Rightist: Gays should be treated like criminals because the FDA says they can't give blood

[ck4829]

When Colmes attempted to get the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer to explain just what he thinks should happen to drug abusers (and gays) Fischer refused to say, simply repeating that whatever the policy is, it ought to be the same for gays.

Basically, Fischer's position is that if the law says that drug users get jail time and/or rehabilitation, then that is what should happen to gays as well. And that view seems to rest entirely upon the fact that FDA policies banning gay men and intravenous drug users from donating blood.

I have no idea why Fischer thinks that this FDA policy regarding blood donation means that drug use and gay sex are exactly the same thing and ought to be treated the same in all regards.

His logic seems to be that:

Intravenous drug use can spread HIV;

Gay male sex can spread HIV;

Intravenous drug use is illegal;

Therefore gay male sex should be illegal.

One little problem with Fischer's "logic" though:

People who have received transplants of animal tissue and people who traveled or have lived in countries where there is a risk of malaria or Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease are also banned from giving blood.

Does this mean that people who get new heart valves (Which usually come from pigs) are an affront to the lord and need "rehabilitation" as well?

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/when-did-fda-dictate-criminal-policy

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Same can be said about certain HETEROsexuals, including children.

And aren't we all animals, just some more civilized than others?

[krabigirl]

2. Wow, so I guess anyone who cant' give blood is a criminal? lol

I can't give blood because I lived in England for a little over a year in the mid-90s. I guess the US thinks I have mad cow. Off to jail with me.

[Zenlitened]

3. America is a christian nation because it says "in god we trust" on our money!!!!11

Pretty nifty, how their circular reasoning works, isn't it? :puke:

[pipi_k]

4. Not to mention people who have gotten Hepatitis B or C

They can't donate blood either.

Maybe we should just lock up everyone who tests positive for something that makes them ineligible to donate blood, since we can never tell how they got infected.

In fact, when I worked in a group home setting with developmentally disabled adults, many of them had Hep B. I'll bet the RW nuts would LOVE to be able to lock those people up as criminals, too.

:eyes:

[ChickMagic]

5. Wow! I can't give blood

because I had a systemic cancer, was pounded with heavy metals, and am
in remission. Does that make me likely to be jailed?

[Echo In Light]

6. Or those who've received tatt work within the past yr (unsure if this is applicable in all states?)

[dmallind]

7. I can't either - because I spent more than a few weeks in the UK in last 20 years

A rather idiotic prohibition given the transmission mechanisms for JCD which supposedly prompted it, but hey if they don't want my <2% blood type who am I to complain?

[Unvanguard]

8. Even bracketing the problem of overinclusiveness, his argument has a more basic problem.

Namely, we don't ban the use of illegal drugs because they spread AIDS; rather, we ban them (justifiably or not) for their direct health consequences and the social harms those bring about, and they were illegal on those grounds long before HIV posed any problem. Gay sex, however, is in and of itself harmless. It, too, was illegal before HIV posed a problem, but it was illegal based upon an irrational and bigoted code of puritanical sexual ethics--hardly a legitimate basis for public policy.