And I’m not defending (or attacking) the donor being gay. To me it’s simply irrelevant.
I doubt many of us would feel much differently. However, among the many groups considered high risk for donating blood and organs(previous prostitution, IV drug use, men who have sex with men) It’s this single group that seems to be the ones having the problem with accepting the priority of public health when it comes to acting as organ/blood donors, at least they’re the ones making such a fuss about the standards. I personally have problems with being allowed to donate blood for reasons of my own, but some people just can’t seem to shut up and care that rights have limits, which are when you infringe upon others’ rights by putting them in serious danger.
OK, just kidding about not staying engaged. Yours was an excellent post, and I agree. And I think I agree 100%, though I have not parsed your words carefully enough to stand by them to that extent.
The distinction you make may seem subtle but I think of overriding significance. A subset of gays, likely quite small, engages in wreckless behavior. If we have no other way to guard against that wrecklessness, then perhaps the public health risk is so great that we need to restrict the prerogatives of all gays, even when this is ultimately a truly selfless act.
HOWEVER, that is an infringement that none of us should take lightly, because we could extend it perhaps in other settings to smokers, philanderers, and ... well, almost anyone.
And if we do take that action, we should not find it necessary to focus on the gayness of organ donors, even if all of their rights to donate are being infringed. Whatever we think of homosexuality, this seems gratuitous to me. We should instead seek to emphasize that the reason we must do this is because some gay donors — again, likely a very small fraction — are behaving irresponsibly, and it is regrettable but necessary to restrict the prerogatives of all gay organ donors.
And this action should only be taken as a last resort, as a response to a very significant problem (e.g., that outweighs the many, many, many lives that gay organ donors are saving every year), and so forth.
Why would this level of prudence strike any poster here as “drinking the PC koolaid?”
OK, now I really do have to go.
Truly, thanks to all for reading this.