Canadian Blood Services is legally allowed to ban men who have sex with men from donating blood, an Ontario court has found. Gay rights groups are furious with the decision.

In a ruling Thursday, the Ontario Superior Court dismissed a constitutional challenge from a man who tried to fight the policy. The court decided that the law does not give someone the right to donate blood. It also noted that the Charter of Rights does not apply to the blood agency's policies, because it is not a government entity.

The ruling stems from a case that began with Canadian Blood Services suing a gay man named Kyle Freeman, who lied about his sexual status when he donated blood several times between 1990 and 2002. Once the agency learned that Freeman had lied on his questionnaires, they sued.

Freeman argued he lied because the policy banning gay men from donating wasn't scientifically justified and violated his rights. He launched a counterclaim under the Charter.

But on Thursday, the court dismissed the challenge, finding Freeman liable for $10,000 for negligent misrepresentation.

The judge in the case, Justice Catherine Aitken, did note in her written decision that gay and bisexual men may feel "a loss of dignity, a feeling of marginalization, a sense of disappointment, and a sense of injustice" when denied the opportunity to give blood.

But she ruled that the impact of that injustice is not "in the same league" as a blood recipient being asked to accept lower safety standards.

Anger over ruling

Egale Canada spokesperson Helen Kennedy expressed disappointment with the decision, saying, "The negative consequences this ruling has on Charter rights are enormous."


Monique Doolittle-Romas, the executive director of the Canadian AIDS Society (CAS), says it's "disturbing" that the court framed the case as a "contest" between safety and gay rights.

CAS Board Vice-Chair Jeffrey Keller added in a statement: "In the end, this simply means that groups, such as CAS, [Canadian Federation of Students] and Egale, will continue to apply pressure until CBS relents and changes its outdated policy. It's a divisive policy that turns away many young adults who are dissatisfied with it, and in the process, curtails Canada's blood supply."

"We will keep fighting for change that will produce an improved screening question that respects both the safety of the blood supply and human rights."

Canadian Blood Services requires prospective blood donors to complete questionnaires ahead of their donation about their medical history and potentially harmful behaviour.

Intravenous drug users, people who may have been exposed to Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (mad cow disease), people who have exchanged money for sex or drugs are all permanently banned. Currently, men who had sex with men from 1977 onwards (the year estimated as the start of the AIDS epidemic) also face "indefinite deferrals" from donations.

Earlier this year, two doctors wrote in an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that Canada's ban on donations from homosexual men is outdated and unfair.

Dr. Mark Wainberg, the head of the McGill University AIDS Centre, and Dr. Norbert Gilmore, of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, argued that fears of the opotential for HIV transmission are unfounded, because it is almost impossible for today's HIV tests to produce false results.

They also argued that a better policy would be to allow donations only from gay men in long-term, monogamous relationships. Those with multiple sex partners should still be barred, just as heterosexuals with multiple partners currently face one-year deferrals, they argued.

Secondly, I would have to say yes - that to some degree people who have religion are fanatics - but to varying degrees. They have to be to be believers in a fanatical concept like a supreme being without being offered any proof that such a being exists. Faith is by its very nature fanatical.

I don't believe that there is an invisible man living in the sky. How does that make me the fanatical one?

As for my analogy of the fire and the house - the fire was the tool of a fanatic. Period. Fire is not fanatical but it was employed by a fanatic to achieve a fanatical result.

To blame the people brainwashed by such organizations is like saying the fire destroyed the house - not the arsonist!

NANAIMO, B.C. - Prime Minister Stephen Harper has used his Christian faith to "unequivocally condemn" a Florida church that plans to burn 200 copies of the Muslim holy book.

"I don't speak very often about my own religion but let me be very clear: My God and my Christ is a tolerant God, and that's what we want to see in this world," he said.

Harper was adding his voice to the global outcry against a Florida preacher who plans to burn copies of the Qur'an in a bonfire Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Rev. Terry Jones, of the tiny Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., told a news conference Wednesday that he's received a lot of encouragement for his protest, with supporters mailing copies of the Islamic holy text to his church, which has about 50 followers.

"As of right now, we are not convinced that backing down is the right thing," said Jones, who took no questions.

But Harper was direct in his denunciation.

"I unequivocally condemn it," he said. "We all enjoy freedom of religion and that freedom of religion comes from a tolerant spirit."

"I don't think that's the way you treat other faiths, as different as those faiths may be from your own."

Earlier Wednesday, the man in charge of Canada's armed forces also voiced his disdain.

"This initiative is insulting to Muslims and Canadians of all faiths who understand that freedom of thought and freedom of religion are fundamental to our way of living," Defence Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement.

"We call on this pastor to bring people together, not break them apart."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Robert Gates echoed objections first raised by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, who warned that the proposed event would place the lives of American troops in jeopardy there and elsewhere.

MacKay said Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are not fighting Islam or Islamic beliefs, but rather "an extremist and brutal enemy ... that condones public stonings, pours acid in the faces of Muslim schoolgirls who want a better future, and wishes to rule people by fear, intimidation and violence."

Canadians, MacKay said, take pride in their country's fundamental values of freedom of religion and thought.

"We are a country built on waves of immigrants who made Canada and who we are today," he said.

"Our values are what binds Canadians together during our hardest battles and our darkest moments. We recognized the strength of these attributes in our society on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and we rallied our spirits in the days that followed that terrible day with the knowledge that respecting our uniqueness brings Canadians closer together."

Jones has been under intense pressure from the White House and religious leaders to call off his plan to burn the book Muslims consider the word of God, but so far he's shown no signs of backing down.

To blame the people brainwashed by such organizations is like saying the fire destroyed the house - not the arsonist! Based on that, I would have to say that if anyone is contradicting themselves, it's you.