Sette os ee PB, CO RRRI STR TN box 2503, new westminster, british : eohithbia V3L 5B2 volume 18 number 7 nauseous of registration with the students of Douglas College January 24, 1994 DCSS ponders withdrawing blood support donor clinics may no longer have student society support by Tim Crumley The Douglas College Student Soci- ety is considering withdrawing sup- ‘port for the Red Cross Blood donor clinics, after the Lesbian, Gay and Bi- sexual Collective of the college ex- pressed concerns about alleged dis- criminatory practices. The Red Cross uses a questionnaire that all potential donors must fill out before donating blood. The question- naire asks if the potential donor, if male, if they have had sex with an- other man, “even once,” since 1977. If they answer yes, they are not allowed to donate blood. Lisa J. Lander, Lesbian, Gay and Bi- sexual rep of the DCSS, said the policy was discriminatory. “The question was about sexual orientation, not about sexual behav- iour, and we feel as a collective it’s not about your orientation, it’s about your behaviour,” she said. She told the Other Press that she first heard about the practice at the Power of Action conference in Mon- treal last year. Other schools, like »McGill,..Concordia, and Uvic,-had withdrawn support and urged other schools to do so as well. Upon returning, Lander received the questionnaire from a donor clinic held at the college, and brought the issue up at a DCSS meeting November 29.There, they decided to write at let- ter to the Red Cross asking them to change their policy, and make a deci- sion based on the response. If no re- sponse is received by January 31, then the DCSS may remove their support DCSS President Erin Burton said the issue raised an hour of debate, but in her mind the results were satisfactory. “We've at least told them [Red . Cross] the feeling of the Rep Commit- tee, and we're allowing them to fix it, so we don’t have to we don’t have to . withdraw support. And so that was a general feeling that it was fair.” ‘ Lander thought the meeting was hard emotionally. “At one point I was in tears. It hurts, and people don’t want to look at that,” she said. “It was more about just getting the people to see the per- spective in a way that wouldn’t even concern them, because they hadn't even thought about it.” “The point was that we found it offensive. And that as gay and lesbian representatives on campus, that our opinion is more valid than the people who are there that aren’t gay or les- bian. It’s like a racism issue. People of colour or First Nations peoples, their perspective on racism is much more valid than a white person's.” Dr. L. Wadsworth of the Red Cross said their hands are tied. “These questionnaires are not de- signed inVancouver,” Wadsworth said. “The same questionnaire is used in the length and breadth of Canada, and a similar questionnaire is used through- out North America. “There is no way, despite what your student union feels about this, there’s no way we can change it, because we are legally obliged.to.” Lander disagrees. “Tr’s like passing the buck. If they made a stand in the individual offices and said ‘hey, we want this looked at’, it would happen,” she said. “It’s clear, there have been a lot of tests in the States that suggest that the most rapid growth of AIDS right now is in heterosexual women. It’s grow- ing faster in heterosexual women, so they are the people who they should be concerned about.” “To my knowledge, that is not a strategy that is being considered at this moment, nor is it a strategy that is used anywhere else in NorthAmerica,” said Dr. Wadsworth. “The questionnaire is designed to protect the safety of the blood supply. The public is demanding a zero-risk blood supply — this [not allowing gay men to donate blood] is one strategy ters... nothing to try and achieve that.” Burton said she | would like more time to settle the issue. “From » my } phone calls with | them, it doesn’t seem like they un- } derstand what ; aerate were doing,” she said. We received a } letter from them that said ‘we're re- | ally sad that you've withdrawn sup- port, when that’s | not what we did.” “T hope that | the rep committee | will allow more time for the other groups to re- spond,” she said. “We didn’t send @ a our letter off to— them right after the meeting. It didn’t get sent off until I believe the middle of Janu- ary.” But Lander knows this may not work. “The universi- ties have tried let- happened, they withdrew their support. So we knew this process had gone on at other universities. It hadn’t worked with other univer- sities, so why would it* work with Douglas Col- lege? “ Lisa J. Landers (pictured right) wants the Red Cross to stop discriminating against gay men. PHOTO: Mario It’s ok to read Homolka on computer by Pat Micelli TORONTO (CUP) — Students reading details of the Karla Homolka murder trial on a computer network are not violat- ing the publication ban, says noted criminal lawyer Edward Greenspan. Calling up the newsgroup files on the Internet (an international computer net- work) may defeat the purpose of the ban but not the ban itself, Greenspan said in an interview this week. “I don’t see anything wrong with in- dividual members of the public defeat- ing the spirit of the ban.” The confusion arises because people think there is a ban on the details of the trial, but there is only a ban on publish- ing that information, said Greenspan. Homolka was tried for manslaugh- ter July 5, 1993 for the deaths of two young girls. She was sentenced by Jus- tice Francis Kovacs to twelve years in jail. Kovacs’ ban prevents Canadian media from publishing details of the trial until Homolka’s husband, PaulTeale (formerly Bernardo), is tried on related charges. University of Toronto student paper TheVarsity grabbed media attention re- cently after printing a step-by-step guide showing students how to access Homolka newsgroups censored by the university. : Although the media flurry was ig- nited by a Jan. 17 Globe and Mail article quoting Greenspan as saying the Varsity had “clearly broken the spirit of Judge Kovacs’ publication ban,” the lawyer confirmed in a recent interview that the paper technically did not violate it. “Although [the Varsity guide] may be viewed as inciting people to go and obtain the information... the crime is publishing, not making the information available.” Since the media coverage, students have given the guide much more attention.