"Let's see....anyone want to get a blood transfusion from a blood bank that takes blood from gay men? Anyone??"
That's not the right standard and would lead to all kinds of discrimination.
The proper justification, I think, is that gay men have the highest HIV rate, after intravenous drug addicts(who also should not donate.)
I have MS, and I can't donate...even though there is no reason to believe that MS is a blood borne disease. But since they don't really know what causes it, they won't let MSers donate, just in case it might have its cause in some virus as yet unidentified, and possibly passed along through blood.
Yes, another good point. My point about the patient being able to determine the value of his care is also valid.
So? The first ammendment gaurantees our right to peacably assemble. That is we have the right of free association. We can associate with anyone we please. The correlary to that is that we have the right to NOT associate with anyone we choose.
Discrimination in most cases is a very good thing. (The Amish call it shunning) People freely choosing not to associate with people they don't like.
While I agree that discrimination due to someone's skin color is stupid it should not be illegal. And discrimination due to someone's behavior is incredibly wise.
It's time we stopped being so wussified in this country and started standing up for our right to discriminate (not to associate)