Though the Naperville, Ill.-based anti-gay group Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) recently lost their 501(c)3, tax-exempt organizational status, the group, officially designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center last year, is keeping busy with a new campaign to uphold the federal ban against gay blood donors.
AFTAH's campaign, called "Keep the Gay Blood Ban" or "KGB²," was announced last Friday. The campaign urges individuals to contact their senators and congressmen "to put the safety of Americans — and a pristine blood supply — ahead of the demands of the selfish Homosexuality Lobby." The group urges, further, for Congress to embark on an "investigation into the health hazards of homosexual behaviors (just as the government studied the dangers of smoking)."
As AFTAH president Peter LaBarbera hints at, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Serviceshas taken steps in the last year toward dismantling the gay blood ban, which has been on the books since 1983, according to the Washington Independent. In 2010, some 40 members of U.S. Congress, led by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), called for the department to lift the ban. Just last month, the department announced that they had begun a comprehensive evaluation of doing just that.
