Actually this point about hte difference between it being an FDA rule and a Red Cross rule is correct....PARTIALLY. LGBTIQ healthcare equality & advocacy is actually the field in which I work professionally. (I have, ironically, just returned from the National LGBTI Health Summit in Chicago yesterday!) So I am often doing advocacy and education around the ban on gay and bisexual men's blood (and sperm, actually....we are not allowed to donate sperm in fertility clinics either unless our sperm has been requested by a specific recipient). The rule banning blood from any man who has had sex with another man since the year 1977 is, indeed, an FDA rule that the Red Cross is forced to follow. It is true that the Red Cross has publicly stated that they are in favor of revising the rule...HOWEVER, it is important to note that the last time the Red Cross proposed a revision to the rule, they recommended not banning all gay/bi men, but simply stating that they had to be deferred or one year from their last same-sex contact-----a "revised" policy that still effectively bans all sexually active adult gay/bi men from donating blood....even those who consistently practice sexual safety OR who are involved in long term monogomous relationships with an uninfected partner----so, in truth, this "lifting of the ban" is a semantic smoke screen. Others are absolutely right that questions used to defer potential blood donors should be altered to be more risk AND time-specific so that they fall in line with the science of HIV and blood testing.
I realize this is a touchy issue for many to talk about, but I also agree that our community and its allies need to hold both the FDA and the Red Cross' feet to the fire on this issue and lift the ban because not only does it perpetuate institutionalized homophobia, but it is largely scientifically unnecessary AND it is epidemiologically unsound.
1.) Scientifically unnecessary: The truth is that testing for HIV has improved exponentially over the past 3 decades. The most commonly used tests today can be accurate for a window as little as 21 to 90 days after infection and there antigen-based tests (which, I might add, the Red Cross USES!!!) that can detect even acute infection in less than a 21 day window. Testing can and does detect infected blood every day in this country----so enforcin a window of over 30 years or even one year is not needed.
2.) Epidemiologically unsound: The current rules are based on the presumption that gay and bisexual men are the group of people (or at least the ONLY group of people) who are likely to have an undiagnosed HIV infection which we know in this country is no longer always in case. Take, for example, the dramatic increases we have seen in the last decade (or more) of HIV infections of heterosexual African-American women. In truth, if the FDA/Red Cross, want to ban a community of people based on what is perceived as "statistical high risk" of HIV, then they should enforce a ban on straight Black women----and, of course, they would never do so (nor SHOULD they) because it is clearly racist and sexist....
...policies like this are rooted less in science than they are in bigotry and we have a responsibility to speak out against them!
and I'll take the "gay blood" any day! 
