Two of the most prominent non-profit agencies providing relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have complicated histories on gay issues, raising questions for gay donors who want their gifts to help victims of the natural disaster without also hurting the fight for gay civil rights.

In addition to helping disaster victims, the American Red Cross supplies almost half of the nation’s blood supply, according to its Web site. But in 2001, the agency drew fire from some gay critics when it urged the federal Food & Drug Administration to continue a rule banning blood donations from gay men.

The FDA policy, passed in 1985, prohibits any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 from donating blood for the rest of his life.

When the FDA reevaluated the ban in 2000, the Red Cross opposed relaxing the gay blood donor ban, while other blood collection agencies, including the American Association of Blood Banks and America’s Blood Centers, supported modifying the policy.

The Red Cross position was motivated by information from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention that said if a change was made, “an added 1,200 units of HIV-positive blood would enter the system,” Jimmy Hendricks, the Red Cross communications director, told the Blade in 2001.

While that infected blood would likely be weeded out through tests already performed on blood donations, “with any system, whether your car, your stereo system, or the blood collection system, you want to stress the system as little as possible,” Hendricks said.

The American Red Cross includes sexual orientation in the non-discrimination policy for its employees, but does not offer domestic partner benefits, according to data from the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based gay political group.

Officials at the national headquarters of the American Red Cross did not respond to an interview request by press time.

But the Red Cross does not discriminate in offering services to those affected by disasters, according to Debbie McChesney, a spokesperson for the agency’s office in Midtown Atlanta. Treating gay and lesbian storm victims equally is a “non-issue,” she said.

THE SALVATION ARMY, another prominent agency offering help to Katrina victims, has an even more controversial record on gay issues.

A church as well as a charity, the Salvation Army stands firm in its fundamental belief that homosexuality is not condoned in scripture, but “we have no stance against the gay community whatsoever,” Maj. George Hood, the Salvation Army’s national community relations and development secretary, said in a 2003 interview.

In 2001, the Salvation Army revoked an earlier decision to offer domestic partner benefits in its West Coast division, in turn rejecting thousands in donations from the city of San Francisco that came with a requirement of offering DP benefits.

That same year, the Washington Post published portions of a 79-page internal memo from the group that claimed President Bush had agreed to exempt the group under his “faith-based” initiative from state and local laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The White House denied the promise and the exception was never enacted.

The Salvation Army is serving storm evacuees now spread out across 30 states, and gay evacuees will be treated without discrimination, according to spokesperson Melissa Temme.

“People are people. If there is a survivor of a disaster, we don’t discriminate, basically,” Temme said.

But Temme said she was unsure if the Salvation Army’s family policies would apply to same-sex families and partners in long-term aid situations. The criteria for distributing aid should be decided in the coming week, she said.

Operation Blessing, founded in 1978 by evangelist Rev. Pat Robertson, appears on a list of Katrina relief agencies touted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in an Aug. 29 news release.

In 1998, Robertson predicted on his “700 Club” show that disasters, including hurricanes, would descend on Orlando, Fla., because of Gay Days events there.

“It’ll bring about terrorist bombs, it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor,” Robertson said.

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