Unfounded fear is getting in the way of ethical decision making and sound public policy in this country. The gay community continues to be the whipping boy for fear mongers, but everyone suffers when laws are enacted and enforced based on fear.

Take the fact that for the past 27 years men who have engaged in sex with men have been banned from donating blood in the United States. In 1983, at the start of the AIDS crisis, this made sense as a way to prevent the transmission of HIV through blood transfusions. Since then, however, there have been tremendous advances in screening blood and it is next to impossible for any blood with the humane immunodeficiency virus to enter our blood supply. Yet the ban on men who have had sex with men donating blood remains.

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Sen. Al Franken is among 16 senators calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to end the ban on blood donations by gay men. In a letter to FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Thursday, the senators called the policy “medically and scientifically unsound” and called out the double standard placed on gay men who want to be donors.

“Prospective donors who have engaged in heterosexual sexual activity with a person known to have HIV are deferred for one year,” the letter said. “At the same time, male donors who engaged in protected homosexual sexual activity with a monogamous partner 26 years ago are deferred for life.”

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Sen. Al Franken has waded into the culture wars again, this time as a co-sponsor of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2010, which contains a provision to repeal the law that prevents gay Americans from openly serving in the military. In doing so, the bill seeks to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law passed during the Clinton administration. DATD said, in effect, that gays could only serve in the military if they kept their sexual orientation to themselves. If they spoke out — or were outed by someone else — they could be discharged.

“I’ve been on 7 USO tours – 4 to Iraq and Afghanistan – and I recently returned from a trip to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as Senator,” Franken said in a statement. “Over the years I’ve seen tremendous movement on this issue within the military. They’re ready for it and we’re ready for it. We need to end a policy that forces patriotic Americans to lie in order to defend their country.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (WXOW) Minnesota representatives announced that first responders in 15 Minnesota communities will receive better tools and training thanks to a number of federal grants.

These are the latest round of grants from the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG).

Since 2001 the AFG programs have awarded over $4 billion in grants to communities across the nation to enhance the readiness of first responders. The funding can be used for new equipment purchases, training, or even public education programs.

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The Barnesville (Minn.) Fire Department is among 14 Minnesota communities that will receive federal grant funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Barnesville was awarded $41,278 out of more than $611,000 in DHS grant funding coming to the state, members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation announced Thursday.

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Thirteen senators, including Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California, introduced legislation Wednesday that would repeal the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which excludes gays from serving openly in the military.

“The time has come to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ ” Feinstein said. “It is the right thing to do. Every American should have the opportunity to serve their country, regardless of race, sex, creed, or sexual orientation.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Obama today delivered what may be his final plea for Congress to pass health care reform, imploring lawmakers to hold an “up-or-down vote” on legislation “in the next few weeks” — using a strategy outlined last month by Sen. Al Franken.

“I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform,” Obama said today. His speech acted as a closing argument, summing up both his reasons for wanting to pass a health care bill and his desire for a “final vote”, rather than additional discussion.

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After a scant eight months in office, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is breaking out of his shell and positioning himself as an aggressive liberal presence in the Senate — particularly when it comes to one of the most controversial topics in Washington, D.C.: health care reform.

“The first thing I wanted people to know was that I was there to be serious, that I would keep my head down and do my work,” Franken said in his first extended national interview since he was seated in July. “Part of keeping my head down and doing my work was, as a Senator from a state that does this pretty well … to study that and report back.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — All four federally supervised Indian schools in northern Minnesota failed to meet federal testing standards last year, yet they aren’t likely to see much of the cash being doled out to public schools across the country under the Obama administration’s signature education reform plan.

Two of them are also sorely in need of physical repairs or replacement, and have been for years. Yet, at current funding levels, the money to fix them may not arrive for years, possibly decades.

“No student in Minnesota should have to contend with mold problems or huge leaks, but that’s what kids in some reservation schools deal with every day,” said Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. “Students can’t be expected to achieve at high levels when their school building is falling apart.”

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U.S. Sen. Al Franken pushed the Obama administration last week for more federal funds to construct American Indian schools.

The administration increased funding to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, “but unfortunately it has come at the expense of the construction budget,” Franken said Thursday during a budget hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, to which he is a member.

“Even accounting for the transfer of over $51 million from construction to operations, there’s an almost $9 million decrease in Indian school construction,” the Minnesota Democrat said.

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