Northern Ireland is making no significant difference to the safety of its blood supply by permanently banning gay men.
Northern Ireland’s blood ban is doing nothing, a court heard England, Scotland and Wales, men who have sex with men can give blood if they abstain from sex for 12 months – whereas in Northern Ireland they are banned for life.
Successive Health Ministers in Northern Ireland have refused to lift the permanent ban on gay men donating blood in Northern Ireland, fighting a costly legal battle despite the Health department admitting to having “no evidence” whatsoever to continue the ban.
Amid a legal challenge to the rule, the Court of Appeal this week heard that former Health Minister Edwin Poots insisted on keeping the rule in place because he was scared of ‘contamination’, despite increased testing and the weight of scientific evidence.
It’s actually one every 15,625 years, by our maths, so we’re due a mix-up by the year 17,640… and we’re hoping HIV will be eradicated long before then
Adding that the DUP minister had defied professional advice on the issue, Mr Scoffield said: “The minister’s own professional adviser was supporting the change, the chief medical officer was supporting the change.”
Current Health Minister Simon Hamilton, who vowed to be guided by science on the issue, has so far ducked calls to end the ban.
Be careful where you wash your hands
Editorial: Cottaging is a British gay slang term referring to anonymous sex between homosexual men in a public lavatory (a “cottage”, “tea-room” or “beat“), or cruising for sexual partners with the intention of having sex elsewhere. The term has its roots in self-contained English toilet blocks resembling small cottages in their appearance; in the English cant language of Polari this became a double entendre by gay men referring to sexual encounters.
According to Roger Casement’s diaries, from 1903 to 1911, the gay cruising areas in Belfast were at the Albert Clock (probably also around the Customs House toilet), Botanic Gardens, Ormeau Park, and the Giants Ring. Cottaging went on in Victoria Square in an elegant wrought iron edifice (which was still operating in the 1960s and may be in the Ulster Folk Museum) and at the Gasworks.
Cottaging is not something that is recommended as the police will take action, and in the past this had led to prosecution and unfortunately to individuals feeling so threatened by this that they have committed suicide.
The Rainbow Project offers a free Safer Sex Packs delivered direct to your address in Northern Ireland. To receive these please fill in the form on their website. You are eligible to receive our free Safer Sex Packs if you identify as the following:
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A Gay, Bisexual or Man who has Sex with Men (MSM) living in Northern Ireland
Want to find out more about where to get condoms?
You can get free condoms from:
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Brook NI if under 25 – www.brook.org.uk
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Rainbow Project Belfast and Foyle Offices
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Partner Bars and Clubs
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GUM Clinics and Community Pharmacies
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Pensioner who groped burly trucker after mistaking lay-by for gay hook-up spot guilty of sex assault
The Mirror : 15:39, 11 April 2015 By Nick Towle
The horrified victim thought Dennis Cockerill, 82, was asking for directions before he began touching his legs and crotch
Guilty: Cockerill said he wanted to “verify” rumours the lay-by was a gay sex hotspot
A randy pensioner who groped a trucker after he mistook a lay-by for a gay hook-up spot has been convicted of sex assault.
Dennis Cockerill, 82, stopped at the Skipbridge lay-by in Hammerton Green, near Harrogate, looking for “a bit of fun”, a court heard.
He approached the victim, a burly lorry driver in his 40s, believing he was also a sex cruiser, York Crown Court was told.
But Cockerill was misinformed, and the Yorkshire trucker had stopped in the lay-by to load some pig feed onto another wagon.
Prosecutor Paul Newcombe told a jury how Cockerill got up on the step at the side of the victim’s cab and began chatting him up, before reaching through an open window and touching him on the arm, his knee and then his crotch.
The horrified trucker nudged the lustful pensioner away and called the police, who turned up and arrested Cockerill.
Cockerill, from Kent, told officers he’d heard a rumour that the lay-by was used as a meeting placed for gay men and he wanted to “verify” this.
Read more at: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pensioner-who-groped-burly-trucker-5499825
Edwin Poots: ban on gay blood was biased, High Court rules
Previously we have commented and written about the ex-Minister Edwin Poots apparent bias (prejudice) against the LGBT community.
2013/9/19 – Article on Minister’s use of public funds defending the appeal againsgt his ban on gay blood donations and gay adoption.
2013/9/21 – Petition for Minister’s resignation
2014/12/25 – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended the end of a three-decade ban on blood donations
Today we are reprinting the news article from BBC News reporting on the judicial case and Mr Justice Treacy’s comments that the Ban by Edwin Poots ‘infected by apparent bias’. The verdict strengthens a previous finding in October 2013 that the ban is irrational.
The gay blood ban, put in place during the 1980s AIDS threat, was lifted in England, Scotland and Wales in November 2011.
A former health minister’s ban on the donation of blood from gay men in Northern Ireland was “infected by apparent bias”, a court has ruled.
A judge also backed claims from lawyers for a gay man that Edwin Poots’ stance was influenced by Christian beliefs.
The High Court ruling strengthens a previous finding in October 2013 that the ban was irrational.
Mr Poots, who is to appeal that ruling, was replaced as Stormont’s health minister last year.
The gay blood ban, put in place during the 1980s AIDS threat, was lifted in England, Scotland and Wales in November 2011.
The minister has consistently rejected claims that his position may have been influenced by his religious views
It was replaced by new rules which allow donations from gay men who had not had sexual contact with another man for more than a year.
But Mr Poots maintained the prohibition in Northern Ireland on the basis of ensuring public safety.
The minister has consistently rejected claims that his position may have been influenced by religious views.
But lawyers for the gay man who brought the challenge, introduced remarks made by Mr Poots in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The DUP MLA was recorded as saying: “There is a continual battering of Christian principles, and I have to say this – shame on the courts, for going down the route of constantly attacking Christian principles, Christian ethics and Christian morals, on which this society was based and which have given us a very good foundation.”
The judge cited a news article from 2001 in which Mr Poots spoke of the rights of those receiving donations to be told they were getting “clean blood” uncontaminated by the HIV virus.
He added: “The minister’s very troubling lack of candour and his attempt to conceal the fact that he had made a decision are plainly circumstances that are material to whether a fair-minded and informed observer would conclude that there was a real possibility of bias.”
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-30733667
- http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/edwin-poots-ban-on-gay-blood-was-biased-high-court-rules-30892626.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Poots