The Gays Aren't Convincing Me

Today, December 10, 2008, is International Human Rights Day. The organization "Join the Impact" proposed (again, on short notice) that gay people are supposed to call in "gay" to work, and donate their time to voluntary service.

While I'm all for voluntary service, donating about 20 hours each week to serve others publicly and privately, the idea of "calling in gay" doesn't wash with me.

I read the "A Day Without A Gay" website, and didn't find anything of much value to justify calling in to work to take the day off in protest of violations of human rights. My employer doesn't violate human rights -- why punish them? More on that below.

In the past eight years under this President (whose name I can't even write because it makes me ill), the United States went from being a champion of human rights around the world to joining the league of the world's worst abusers of human rights. We've got A LOT of work to do on that front. Banning same-sex marriage in state constitutions, while homophobic and mean-spirited, isn't nearly the same thing as holding "detainees" in Guantanamo indefinitely because we think they knew where the WMDs were in Iraq. (Okay, I'm treating this with levity, but you get my drift.)

Then in reading the "day without a gay" website more deeply, there was one thing that really made me angry: it suggested that one way to "volunteer" today was to try to give blood. Man, that suggestion makes my blood boil, but before I explain why, some readers may not be aware of the regulations surrounding the situation. Here it is, quoted directly from their website (but also widely published elsewhere):

In response to the AIDS crisis of the 1980's the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 from giving blood. This 1985 provision argued that men who have sex with other men are at higher risk of contracting and transmitting HIV and hepatitis, posing a health risk to potential recipients.

While I find this FDA ruling to be absurd, particularly in 2008, nonetheless, you won't find an FDA representative at any facility that collects blood. So it places an exceptionally unfair burden on the poor intake worker at a blood collection center to have to turn someone away by enforcing a rule that they didn't write or have anything to do with.

A better option for service would be to stage a well-organized and coordinated protest with letter-writing campaign to people who can influence the new FDA Commissioners, when appointed, to change the rule. But don't send people to waste their time (gay men trying to donate blood) and cause a poor intake worker to have to enforce a rule that he/she had nothing to do with creating. It's just not fair.

Finally, I'm not participating in "A Day Without A Gay" because I like my work, I like my employer, my employer likes me, and treats me fairly. I work in an environment where it's known that I'm gay, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I am respected and valued for my professional skills and knowledge, my strengths and capabilities, and my leadership. Further, in this day-and-age with the poor economy, the last thing anyone should do is take a day off. This is a time to be seen as working harder, working smarter, and being there.

That's my two cents (much as that's worth in today's economy). Today, for me, is as always, "a day WITH a Gay".