Jessica at Feministing, Amanda at Pandagon, and Echidne have spotted this AP/CNN story:

To the dismay of gay-rights activists, the Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

The FDA has rejected calls to scrap the provision, insisting that gay men collectively pose a higher-than-average risk of carrying the AIDS virus. Critics accuse the FDA of stigmatizing all gay men rather than adopting a screening process that focuses on high-risk sexual behavior by any would-be donor, gay or straight....

Let's see ... Gene Simmons of Kiss says he's slept with 4,600 women. The FDA says he's safe -- he can donate sperm. But not a monogamous gay man who's tested HIV negative.

And apparently a test regimen like the one at this sperm bank isn't good enough:

...all applicants are tested for HIV-1 & 2 by ELISA as well as HIV by PCR, the most advanced testing for the HIV virus to date. Other routine tests are performed to assure that are donor specimens meet or exceed published screening criteria.

Appropriate, selected re-testing is continued throughout the semen donor's donation period. It is GREAT LAKES CRYOBANK's policy to maintain a six month quarantine period for each donor specimen. Prior to the release of any specimen, the donor is re-evaluated for HIV-1 and HIV-2 by ELISA, HIV by PCR, Hepatitis B and C antibodies, Syphilis and HTLV-1. These tests are repeated every 30 days following the initial six month quarantine. If any test result is positive, the donor is eliminated from the program.

Six months (at most) is how long the CDC says it takes for HIV antibodies to be detectable.

Amanda thinks the reason for this change in policy is repulsion at the thought of gay anal sex. Echidne thinks it's fear of transmission of a possible "gay gene."

I suspect the explanation is a lot simpler -- that the FDA thinks gay men are enabling way too many "non-traditional households" (i.e., lesbian couples) to have children. I think this is meant to be a stumbling block for lesbian parents-to-be -- right-wing social engineering in the guise of public health. (An angry San Francisco OB-GYN quoted in the CNN story think the same thing.)

It turns out, though (I didn't know this until I started Googling), that this rule is already in effect in New York State.

*****

THINGS I SHOULD HAVE SAID: Yeah yeah yeah, female-to-male transmission of HIV is much less common than male-to-female. So, bully for you, Gene Simmons. Though the names Magic Johnson and Eazy-E do come to mind.

And it's true that the FDA will allow "dedicated" gay donors -- donors known to the prospective mother/parents. I'm not sure why that's OK when a long series of medical tests on a donor not known to the donee isn't.