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• While this arti­cle is cor­rect in stat­ing that HIV infec­tion rates are on the rise in Het­ero­sex­u­als, it doesn’t com­ment on the over­all per­cent­age of each pop­u­la­tion infected (which is the impor­tant fig­ure). The over­all per­cent­age Gay men infected with HIV (as well as hep B and Syphilis) is far higher than in the Het­ero­sex­ual com­mu­nity. HIV test­ing in this coun­try is not 100% (99.5% is the best esti­mate) effec­tive and a large pro­por­tion of those infected with HIV aren’t aware of their sta­tus. Research sug­gests that let­ting sex­u­ally active gay men donate could raise trans­mis­sion rates through blood dona­tion by 500%. For a dis­ease that is , despite advances in med­ical care, still fatal I believe this fig­ure “trumps” any moral polit­i­cally cor­rect argue­ment.(Report com­ment)

  by keeley64 on October 9th, 2009 at 1:11 pm

• But you seem to for­get that the coun­tries HIV test rate, though 0.5% unaf­fec­tive, could be improved, so surely, if a man is gay and admits this… why could the blood not be screened…say… twice? thus low­er­ing the chance? Because it costs them money one could assume. I just think it is wrong when they’re cry­ing out for all this blood and do not want it.(Report com­ment)

  by wildfire666 on October 10th, 2009 at 12:13 am

• This is clearly a con­tro­ver­sial issue in soci­ety — and peo­ple have dif­fer­ent opin­ions based on many things, pos­si­bly includ­ing their faith. How­ever, do you not think that maybe you have mis­rep­re­sented the Angli­can Soci­ety some­what, by adding the lit­tle quote from Leviti­cus, when they didn’t men­tion any­thing about it! Tak­ing a stab at a reli­gious soci­ety when they have not com­mented is not only unfair, but mis­lead­ing to any stu­dent read­ing this arti­cle. I won­der if the per­son report­ing actu­ally went to the com­mit­tee, where maybe they could have taken a stance on behalf of the soci­ety, or just turned up and asked peo­ple to com­ment on the spot.(Report com­ment)

  by Char­lotte on October 11th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

• May I just com­ment on the dis­gust­ing para­graph about the Chris­t­ian soci­eties in many respects. Fis­rtly I believe you spoke to the Crosslinks Stand which had rep­re­sen­ta­tives of three soci­eties, Cath­Soc, AngSoc, and Meth­Soc. Who­ever you spoke to would have refused to speak for two rea­sons -
  1. They were not pre­pared for a ques­tion whose answer would have reflected as a whole society’s view­point. You’d sim­ply be gain­ing a per­sonal per­spec­tive and then reported it as a soci­ety view­point. I sug­gest next time you wish to get a society’s opin­ion on a mat­ter you con­tact them offi­cialy and not just approach mis­cel­lan­ious mem­bers.
  2. Any­thing a mem­ber would have said could have eas­ily been twisted or mis-reported to spread your own opin­ion. I realise that’s what journil­ism comes down to, but at a stu­dent paper? Your opin­ion on Chris­t­ian beliefs was set before you asked any­one. Father Julian, the Catholic priest, specif­i­cally said that Chris­tians were against any types of dis­crim­i­na­tion. Yet you fol­lowed this with a sin­gu­lar bib­li­cal quote to the con­trary. What was the point of ask­ing for a priest’s opin­ion when you’ve already decided what his stand­point is. You might as well not men­tioned any­one and just replaced that para­graph with “Chris­tian­ity is homo­pho­bic”, which it really isn’t.

  On the point of your choice of bib­li­cal quote, do you even know where that quote comes from in the bible? Leviti­cus 20:13 I think you’ll find. To be hon­est, there are quite a few pas­sages around that sec­tion which many Chris­tians con­sider irrelevent and wrong around that pas­sage. A lot involve ston­ing neigh­bours for this and that. Many, not all but many, Chris­tians now con­sider homo­sex­u­al­ity to per­fectly fine. That’s why there are many Angli­can and Protes­tant gay Min­is­ters and Vic­ars.
  I under­stand you’ve worded your para­grph very well by using “tra­di­tional” and “devout” to hide the gen­eral slur behind a sheild. Yet, the place­ment of it in the para­graph, when you had under­stand­able sil­nce (for the above rea­sons) and a anti-discrimnatory mes­sage from a Priest, seems unrea­son­able and detra­men­tal to the hopes of gain­ing a mod­er­ate view. Also you can be a devout or tra­di­tional chris­t­ian and still be fine with homo­sex­u­al­ity. Are you sug­gest­ing that a homo­sex­ual Vicar is not a devout Chris­t­ian?
  Maybe next time you write an arti­cle, you can hink about it a bit more before being dis­crim­i­natary your­self.(Report com­ment)

  by Arthur7 on October 11th, 2009 at 1:36 pm

• I agree with Char­lotte on this one. As a mem­ber of the Angli­can Soci­ety (and of its com­mit­tee) I cer­tainly wasn’t approached for my views on this and it hasn’t been dis­cusses in com­mit­tee meet­ings. You would prob­a­bly find that we wouldn’t take a stance on behalf of the soci­ety, though — we’re a pretty eclec­tic bunch and you’d prob­a­bly find as many dif­fer­ent views on this issue, or at least the wider issue of homo­sex­u­al­ity as a whole, as there are mem­bers. That may be why who­ever was asked ‘refused to com­ment,’ to be honest.

  For what it’s worth, I have noth­ing against either homo­sex­u­al­ity or gays giv­ing blood; and that’s my own indi­vid­ual point of view, and noth­ing to do with AngSoc.

  (All the while the ban is in place, though — if you’re eli­gi­ble and don’t already do so, go and give blood. While the NBS are pro­hibit­ing a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion from donat­ing, it’s all the more impor­tant that those who can, do. Go on :))(Report com­ment)

  by Siz on October 11th, 2009 at 1:57 pm

• Apolo­gies for those that feel they have been mis-represented, the quote was intended to demon­strate that there was a split when it comes to opin­ions on homo­sex­u­al­ity, it cer­tainly was not intended as a ‘slur’. I am glad that you feel you could com­ment and make your views clear and we will work in the future to make sure com­mit­tees are approached in an appro­pri­ate man­ner.(Report com­ment)

  by Nick Petrie on October 11th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

• My name is Fr Julian Green, and I am the Catholic Chap­lain to the Uni­ver­sity. I was cer­tainly asked about this ques­tion at the Soci­eties Fair. How­ever, what I said is not fully reported here. I said that Chris­tians are against all forms of dis­crima­tion against the dig­nity of the per­son. I also said that this is not the only cri­te­rion to be used, and that some­times, in order to pro­tect oth­ers, soci­ety has to be dis­crim­i­na­tory. One such case might be — and I empha­sise ‘might be’, as I am not fully informed nor an author­ity in the case of blood dona­tion — where the health of oth­ers is prej­u­diced. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of my com­ment next to a half baked the­o­log­i­cal state­ment on the Old Tes­ta­ment might be seen to be a ‘slur’ by some. I do not. How­ever it is the sort of com­ment I would expect to be placed next to any­thing said about Chris­tian­ity that might sound pos­i­tive in any way. I also pointed out to your reporter that this was not the first time in years that the NBS were tak­ing blood dona­tions on the Cam­pus. The Uni­ver­sity Chap­laincy, St Fran­cis Hall, has been wel­com­ing the Blood ser­vice for sev­eral years each term for dona­tions. This was dis­cussed by the Chap­lains (who dis­cussed this issue) who saw the avail­abil­ity of life sav­ing blood trans­fu­sions as a greater good, and that the per­ceived dis­crim­i­na­tion felt by some was out­weighed by the right to life of those in need of blood.(Report com­ment)

  by julianch­green on October 11th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

• I also note that there is no men­tion of either the Islamic Soci­ety or Jew­ish Soci­ety who were in close prox­im­ity of your reporter at the time. What did they have to say?(Report com­ment)

  by julianch­green on October 11th, 2009 at 5:54 pm

• Chris­tian­ity isn’t homo­pho­bic? Umm…yes actu­ally it is. Take my word for it. Sui­cide is the biggest killer of gay men. Maybe chang­ing toxic atti­tudes the Church per­vades might save lives as well as the blood that’s not good enough to donate.(Report com­ment)

  by waldo on October 13th, 2009 at 12:54 am

• Waldo — no, Chris­tian­ity isn’t homo­pho­bic. Some Chris­tians, unfor­tu­nately, are. Please don’t take the prej­u­dices of some to be the beliefs of all.(Report com­ment)

  by Siz on October 15th, 2009 at 12:30 am

• Chris­tian­ity doesn’t have a par­tic­u­larly accept­able atti­tude to homo­sex­u­al­ity as far as most peo­ple are con­cerned. How­ever you need to be more accu­rate when using the word ‘homo­pho­bic’. Homo­pho­bic does not sim­ply mean anti-gay, and should not be employed unless denot­ing an actual fear of homosexuals/homosexuality. While I agree that call­ing homo­sex­u­al­ity ‘an abom­i­na­tion’ is not cool, there is noth­ing to sug­gest that the church’s doc­trine is homo­pho­bic.
  It’s so annoy­ing when peo­ple use ‘homo­pho­bia’ as a sort of blan­ket term for any­thing. It’s such an overused term. Anti gay maybe, but that isn’t the same thing. Just like racism and xeno­pho­bia.(Report com­ment)

  by sleepy_gonzalez on October 15th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

• oh, and my 2 cents worth on the debate– the first 2 posts sum this debate up pretty well. Sig­nif­i­cantly raised trans­mis­sion rates (500%) is enough rea­son to alter pol­icy. Urgent need for blood is good enough rea­son to try to accom­mo­date even high risk groups , and finan­cial and logis­ti­cal con­straints should be the only fac­tor to pre­vent such accom­mo­da­tion.
  With such clear fig­ures, I just can’t see where any­one has got homo­pho­bia from. Over-sensitivity per­haps? You must have a pretty dim view of human­ity, or a per­se­cu­tion com­plex and a half, to jump to the con­clu­sion that some­one would com­pro­mise their objec­tive of tak­ing as much blood as pos­si­ble and sav­ing lives, purely in order to mis­treat gay peo­ple, or because –engage alarmist knee-jerk response– they are homo­pho­bic.(Report com­ment)

  by sleepy_gonzalez on October 15th, 2009 at 5:42 pm