I hate needles, which is why you’ll find my skin doesn’t have a drop of ink on it.

Other than the stamps from various bars over the weekend, sometimes the shame tends to linger even after a good soaping.

That being said, sometimes you just have to suck it up and donate blood, because in times of crisis every drop counts.

True, unless you happen to be homosexual – in which case your blood is no good. Nowhere is this more outrageous than in Orlando right now, the area rocked by the tragic events of Sunday morning.

Here’s Newser with how the discrimination doesn’t stop with the shooting:

Though the [Food and Drug Administration] FDA recently lifted the lifetime ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, those men must still go a full year without having sex with another man in order to be eligible to donate. This is still, effectively, a “ban on gay blood,” and an “unjustified” one at that,  writes John Paul Brammer…

“It is an outrage that our blood can be spilled but not donated. It is an outrage that, despite the facts and despite calls to lift the ban from experts across the country, homophobia and gay panic keeps it in place,” Brammer writes.

Mark Joseph Stern writes, “Heterosexual people who have unprotected sex with multiple anonymous partners are permitted to donate at any time. The de facto ban on gay blood donation is utterly unsupported by science and has been abolished by other countries—but the FDA remains extraordinarily hesitant to loosen rules on gay blood donation.”

Picture the scene where you try and donate blood to help, and you get turned away based solely on your sexual orientation – all while the victims of a senseless shooting lie waiting for donors.

Maybe those who shout about the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms should also shout about someone’s right to donate blood without discrimination.

I wouldn’t bet on it though.

[source:newser]