Tropical Storm Fay avoided my island on Florida’s Gulf Coast altogether.

Gustav sent some waves and winds our way, but not much else.

Ike flexed its muscle as it passed far west of my home, but delivered little more than some heavy-duty waves for surfers.

When you live in Florida, you spend September watching the Weather Channel, following the tracks of tropical depressions and developing storms on the National Hurricane Center Web site and judging where your home falls in the famed cone of uncertainty.

Feeling lucky and aching for those hit by the storms of early September, west coast Floridians pushed up short sleeves last week to respond to an urgent call for blood donations.

Such a call is not unusual in emergencies — either in preparation for a disaster or after the fact.

I did not roll up my sleeve. I learned a couple of years ago, while sitting on a cot in a blood drive tent waiting for the needle, that I cannot donate blood.

The strike against me?

I simply don’t weigh enough. For my protection — and perhaps some liability issues — Florida Blood Services won’t accept me as a donor because I weigh less than 110 pounds.

I was turned away to protect my health, but it still was somewhat embarrassing.

To be turned away to perpetuate prejudice and transmit misinformation would be infuriating.

But that is what happens when men who have had sex with other men seek to donate blood. They are turned away under a federal policy that dates back to the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration imposed the ban in 1985, ruling that men who have had sex with men — even once — since 1977 cannot donate blood for the rest of their lives.

An advisory committee twice voted to continue the ban — in 1998 and 2000, but the vote was split.

More recently, a senior consultant to the American Blood Center and the American Red Cross advised the government that the lifetime ban “is medically and scientifically unwarranted.” The adviser, Dr. Steven Kleinman, recommended “that deferral criteria be modified and made comparable with criteria for other groups at increased risk for sexual transmission of transfusion-transmitted infections.”

In addition to the Red Cross and the ABC, a number of groups have called for lifting the lifetime ban, including university students that recently have protested the policy — campus groups in California are making the most noise.

What these groups recommend is a more rational approach to protecting the nation’s blood supply, perhaps a reduction in the lifetime ban to be more equitable with criteria for other groups at increased risk for sexual transmission of transfusion-transmitted infections.

A fact sheet from the FDA explains that the ban — the government uses “deferred” rather than “banned” or “prohibited” — is not unique to the United States and that other countries have implemented similar policies, recently re-examined them and retained them.

Still, other countries have recognized that a donor’s sexual orientation does not make him a threat to the blood supply.

While no one can disagree with the FDA that keeping the blood supply safe is top priority, we can argue that the U.S. policy does not deal with risks equally.

Potential donors judged to be at risk of exposure to HIV via heterosexual routes — or via non-sexual activities — are deferred for one year while men who have had sex with another man, even once, in 31 years, are permanently deferred.

The science demonstrates that duplicate testing detects HIV-infected donors between 10-21 days after exposure — not a year, but certainly not decades.

The policy, at least, should be amended to the one-year deferment, though even that fails to take into account the monogamous men who have had sex with just one man in the last 31 years.

To continue the lifetime ban can only mean the continuation of a government intent to discriminate against a group of people.

And, for blood banks, it can only continue to hamper efforts to enrich supplies.