In the News

You are looking at live pictures from Orlando, we’re waiting for a memorial to begin within the next 90 minutes at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke; it will followed by a candlelight vigil to honor the 49 victims of the Pulse nightclub tragedy. An estimated 20,000 people expected to attend that vigil. In the wake of the shooting tragedy, blood banks in Orlando and around the country quickly put out the call for donors, and many lined up to give, but gay and bisexual men who wanted to help were turned away, renewing calls to loosen restrictions that some say perpetuate a stigma.

Ramon Gardenhire remembers being in law school at Wayne State University in Detroit and trying to give blood for the first time. He went with a group of friends and sat down with the screener. "She was going through all the list of questions when she asked, 'Have you had sex with any men since 1978?'" Gardenhire says. After joking about how that was the year he was born, Gardenhire told her yes, he had, publicly revealing his status as a gay man.

When news broke early Sunday morning of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 50 people and left over 50 critically injured, residents of the city began lining up in droves to offer their support at local blood banks. But the community hit hardest by the tragedy—gay men—was left feeling powerless because of a ban enacted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration more than 30 years ago that prevents gay men and men who have sex with men (MSM) from donating blood.

Leading gay rights advocates in Congress plan to ask the White House to end a decades-old policy that prohibits many gay men from donating blood in the wake of the deadly Orlando, Fla., shooting at a gay nightclub.