ABC News Melbourne December 1984

[Ringvireot]

There are still homosexuals today who don't give a rat's ass if they were suffering from HIV/AIDS. If they every understood the truth about such a taboo ideology then there wouldn't be an average timeframe of 6 minutes per person in one day (an estimate of over 100 people) who transfer blood and/or bodily fluids to the same sex of a person who also desires homosexuality. They ought to be circumsized to decrease the risk of such a virus.

[Thetasigmaman]

Aussie Bob!!!!!

[sydneygayboi]

In Australia the BAN ON HOMOSEXUALS giving blood CONTINUES.

But they say...you can be Homosexual but you must abstain from sex for more than 12 months.

It's blatant discrimination.

[andrewjamesalabaster]

In Britain and Commonwealth countries (in this case Australia) a billion used to be one million million, not one thousand million as is the case now and was always the case in the US.

[visaman]

This is still being done in Canada.

[francis1971]

I'm only interested in the first 10-15 seconds.

[cdgh99]

@derfuhrer881 i say redneck because you are simply wrong and ignorant of current thinking. Homosexuality has been removed as a mental illness from most developed countries medical journals including the US. You are right homosexuality is not the norm, most people are straight. So what is your point? So if you are born gay or autistic what should society do with them?

[humpyhustler]

@cdgh99 Drown them.

[cdgh99]

@derfuhrer881 No it is widely accepted that gay people are born that way, they have existed in all cultures long before the christians and other god delusionists told the world they were not natural. Be a redneck about them if you like but you are wrong to think that sexuality is something you have control over.

[cdgh99]

@derfuhrer881 Homosexuality is not a choice. I'm guessing your not gay so i'm not sure why you care. If your not having sex with a gay person you don't need to worry. By the way lesbian sex has lower risk of spreading STD's than any other type of sex including straight sex.

[cdgh99]

@derfuhrer881 so what is your point, so what if gay sex has higher risk of std transmission?

[cdgh99]

@derfuhrer881 i dont disagree with you that gay sex can spread std's but so can straight sex. I was just shocked that people back in 1984 thought that making people say weather they were gay or not at a blood bank was an effective way of protecting the public from HIV.

[cdgh99]

Awful how they thought by stopping gays and drug users from giving blood that would stop or slow the spread of AIDS. That report implied that gay were just disease spreaders. How blind people were to sex. Did no one think aids was also spread through straight sex?

[shazzam29]

actually they didn't. I know I was shocked too, but my mom told me in 1984, people actually thought this was a disease only spread through homosexual males. Think About it, homosexuality was still in some way a taboo, so people had alot of arguments against it, so now doubt they would blame them for this disease. It actually took a while to figure out that AIDs could be spread through straight people as well...

[cdgh99]

Glad times have changed or at least changing. Just hard to believe that signing a form when giving blood was suppose to protect people. However i still think that you have to sign that form

[erictheangrypenguin]

@cdgh99 At the time this broadcast was made, it wasn't known that AIDS could be spread by heterosexuals. There was also incredible panic and ignorance towards AIDS, where people thought that you could contract the disease by sharing drinking glasses, swimming in public pools etc. So the paranoia in this news report stems from how little was known at the time, and shows just how much attitudes have changed.

[Bicci007]

1984 doesn't seem that long ago but looking at this video it is a different world to the one we live in today.

[bigbowlowrong]

AIDS BABIES