Don Kassing, president of San Jose State University, supports banning blood drives from the campus. The university bowed to pressure from gay rights groups who say the blood drives are discriminatory, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

   The discriminatory and outdated practice of banning gay men from donating blood is a cause worthy of protest, and it has blood banks across California seeing red. But banning blood drives on SJSU's 30,000-person campus will only hurt many innocent people in the community.

   The controversial rule banning men who have ever had sex with other men was enacted in 1985, before a complex screening process was available for HIV/AIDS. The rule prevents any man who has engaged in sexual activity with another since 1977 from donating, since that was the start of the AIDS epidemic in the US, according to the US Food and Drug Administration's Web site.

   Red Cross officials view the lifetime ban on homosexual and bisexual men as outdated. All blood is screened for Hepatitis and STDs. Any infected blood is discarded, and the donor is contacted. Testing can catch any diseases contracted as early as three weeks prior to donation, making it highly efficient. However, all lobbying attempts to change the minds at the FDA, the group in charge of changing the rules, have been futile, according to InsideBayArea.com.

   This particular rule does indeed need updating, since many gay men want to give blood, and the only way they can do so is by lying to medical technicians. But victims in need of blood shouldn't be deprived of help for the sake of making a point.

   Instead, activists should help the needy by continuing to donate but sign a petition to call attention to an injustice, or by writing to the FDA and explaining that it would help the needy to increase the number of potential donors.

   The questionnaire donors have to fill out are meant to protect recipients from high-risk groups, which includes drug users. But until blood drives hook participants up to a polygraph test, there's no way of knowing the truth about a contributor. Blood is blood, and if it's disease-free then it doesn't matter who it originally belonged to.