Utah Condom Campaign Halted over Racy Packaging

BBC: Utah Governor Gary Herbert has halted the distribution of 100,000 free condoms in the US state because of racy slogans on the packaging.

It features phrases like "SL,UT", a word play on Utah and its capital, Salt Lake City, "Enjoy Your Mountin" and "Explore Utah's caves".

It was part of a campaign by the Utah department of health on HIV prevention and promotion of safe sex.

The department apologised for "the offensive packaging". » | Thursday, January 16, 2020

Iran Giving Out Condoms for Criminals to Rape Us, Say Jailed Activists

THE GUARDIAN: Smuggled letters allege authorities are using mass rape as a weapon inside Iran's most notorious prisons

Prison guards in Iran are giving condoms to criminals and encouraging them to systematically rape young opposition activists locked up with them, according to accounts from inside the country's jail system.

A series of dramatic letters written by prisoners and families of imprisoned activists allege that authorities are intentionally facilitating mass rape and using it as a form of punishment.

Mehdi Mahmoudian, an outspoken member of Iran's Participation Front, a reformist political party, is among those prisoners who have succeeded in smuggling out letters revealing the extent of rape inside some of the most notorious prisons. » | Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Friday, June 24, 2011

Kiddoms!
Excuse me, but shouldn’t boys of twelve be playing with their friend Willy instead of playing with their own willy? – © Mark

MAIL ONLINE: Extra small condoms for boys as young as 12 are going on sale in Switzerland after a sexual health group campaign.

Called the Hotshot, the condom has been produced after government research showed 12 to 14-year-olds did not use sufficient protection when having sex.

The study, conducted on behalf of the Federal Commission for Children and Youth, interviewed 1,480 people aged between 10 and 20.

It found more 12 to 14-year-old were having sex, in comparison with the 1990s.

Nancy Bodmer, who led the research at the Centre for Development and Personality Psychology at Basel University, said: 'The result that shocked us concerned young boys who display apparently risky behaviour.

'They have more of a tendency not to protect themselves. They do not have a very developed sexual knowledge. Swiss government produces extra small condoms for boys as young as 12 >>> Alexandra Williams | Wesnesday, March 03, 2010

Carla Bruni Criticises Pope Benedict XVI
THE TELEGRAPH: Carla Bruni has issued a scathing attack on Pope Benedict XVI saying that she has allowed her Catholic faith to lapse because of his approach to contraception in Africa.

Carla Bruni has criticised Catholic teachings. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
France's First Lady said that the Church's teachings had left her feeling "profoundly secular".

She departed from her post's traditional religious neutrality to accuse the Pope of "damaging" countries like Africa with his stance on birth control.

The Italian-born former supermodel risked angering believers in France and beyond by declaring that the Pontiff's proclamations showed that the Church needed to "evolve".

In March, the Pope sparked controversy while on an Africa tour by saying that the AIDs pandemic which has crippled the continent "can't be resolved with the distribution of condoms; on the contrary, there is the risk of increasing the problem".

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy said: "I was born Catholic, I was baptised, but in my life I feel profoundly secular.

"I find that the controversy coming from the Pope's message – albeit distorted by the media – is very damaging.

"In Africa it's often Church people who look after sick people. It's astonishing to see the difference between the theory and the reality.

"I think the Church should evolve on this issue. It presents the condom as a contraceptive which, incidentally, it forbids, although it is the only existing protection," she told Femme Actuelle, the women's magazine.

The comments will cause Mr Sarkozy embarrassment in a country where, despite the separation of Church and State, a majority of the population was born Catholic.

André Roux, a constitutional historian said: "It's unprecedented for a first lady to criticise the Pope. Charles de Gaulle's wife was very Catholic and would never had taken up position, remaining very discreet. The same was true of Bernadette Chirac, who never gave her opinion on religion or international affairs.

"Even Danielle Mitterrand, the wife of François Mitterrand who was not a believer and aired her political views, never attacked the Pope. >>> By Henry Samuel in Paris | Monday, May 18, 2009

If the Pope’s approach to the use of condoms leaves Carla feeling “profoundly secular”, one can only guess how the Pope feels when he sees photos of Carla in her birthday suit, or romping on the beach in a G-string! – ©Mark

The Pope Is 'Stupid', Says Richard Dawkins after Pontiff's Claim that Condoms Increase AIDS
Professor Dawkins stands with the UK's first atheist campaign founder Ariane Sherine before one of the ads they placed on London buses and Underground. Dawkins has labelled the Pope 'stupid' for his stance on condoms. Photo courtesy of MailOnline
MAIL Online: Biologist Richard Dawkins has attacked the Pope as 'stupid' over his claim condoms increase AIDS.

The prominent atheist said Benedict XVI would end up with the blood of millions of people on his hands if they took his words seriously.

Speaking at a university in Spain, he raged: 'I wonder on what basis anyone can say condoms make AIDS worse.

'The Pope is either stupid, ignorant or just dim.

'If people take his words seriously he will be responsible for the deaths of thousands, perhaps millions of people.'

Dawkins, 67, launched his attack in a press conference at the University of Valencia after being awarded an honorary degree at an official ceremony.

He also claimed the more people thought for themselves, the less they were likely to believe in God.

And he congratulated U.S. President Barack Obama for overturning predecessor George Bush's funding ban on stem cell research.

Professor Dawkins is known for his passionate views and has become known as much for his views on atheism as his Darwinist theories on evolution. >>> By Gerard Couzens | Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Condoms to Be Advertised Round-the-clock on TV
TIMESONLINE: Condoms are to be advertised round-the-clock on television under proposals published today.

In an attempt to cut the teenage pregnancy rate, which is the highest in Europe, the Advertising Standards Authority wants to relax the current rules. The authority also proposes to allow pro-abortion services to advertise on television for the first time in a move condemned immediately by anti-abortion groups.

The 9pm watershed on condom advertisements is to be abolished, although they will not be broadcast around programmes aimed at children under 10.

The change is outlined in a consultation by the authority beginning today on new advertising codes for broadcast and other media. Pregnancy advice services will be able to advertise on television but must make it clear whether or not their service includes abortion referrals.

The use of condoms was condemned last week by the Pope as a health measure that “aggravates” rather than protects against the problem of HIV/Aids infection.

Anti-abortion and Catholic groups believe that condoms encourage promiscuity and so have the opposite effect of what is intended, increasing rates of unwanted pregnancies and risking an increase of sexually transmitted diseases.

At present, condoms cannot be advertised on Channel 4 before 7pm and on other channels before 9pm, in order to protect younger viewers from “inappropriate” content. Britain’s growing teenage pregnancy rate, however, has prompted the proposal for change.

Baroness Gould of Potternewton, the chairman of the Government’s Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV, wrote to the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice in 2007 to request a review of the scheduling restrictions on condom advertising, noting that Britain had the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and spiralling rates of sexually transmitted infections. Her group’s annual report had showed that young people believed television was one of the most effective ways of encouraging those of the same age group to use condoms. >>> Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent | Thursday, March 26, 2009

LE FIGARO: Sida : l'Église ne proscrit pas le préservatif

L'Osservatore Romano rend publique une étude, menée en Ouganda, mettant en évidence l'efficacité du préservatif dans la lutte contre la maladie.


Photo de préservatifs grâce aux Google Images.
La nouvelle peut surprendre après la polémique ouverte par Benoît XVI lors de son voyage en Afrique, mais l'Église catholique admet implicitement le préservatif pour lutter contre le sida. Son combat - totalement incompris - consiste à dire que ce moyen ne suffit pas, à lui seul, pour endiguer l'épidémie. Le quotidien officiel du Saint-Siège, l'Osservatore Romano, vient de le confirmer publiquement en admettant l'efficacité prophylactique du préservatif à condition qu'il soit associé à d'autres facteurs.

En première page de l'édition du dimanche 22 mars, un article sur «Église et sida» reconnaît que le préservatif est efficace «à 97 % contre l'infection» dans les meilleures conditions d'utilisation et «à 87 %» dans des conditions communes, comme en Afrique. Et le journal de citer l'expérience de l'Ouganda où des campagnes soutenues par le gouvernement, dites «ABC», ont été lancées contre le sida : «A» comme abstinence, «B» comme fidélité (be faithful), «C» comme préservatif (condom).

L'article précise aussitôt que l'usage du préservatif prévu par cette méthode n'est certes pas conforme «aux indications de l'Église», mais que les effets de ­cette campagne sont spectaculaires. L'Ouganda est ainsi «l'unique pays d'Afrique qui a obtenu de bons résultats» dans cette lutte contre le sida : «La fréquence d'infection dans la population est descendue de 15 % en 1991 à 5 % en 2001.»

«L'abstinence» en question est effectivement conseillée aux jeunes adolescents. L'âge moyen du premier rapport sexuel a ainsi été retardé de «15 à 19 ans». «La fidélité», recommandée aux couples, aurait permis de réduire de 60 % le vagabondage sexuel. La méthode prévoit, enfin, l'usage du préservatif. «Ces trois facteurs, insiste l'Osservatore Romano, ont une influence importante sur la réduction de l'incidence du sida.» >>> Jean-Marie Guénois | Mardi 24 Mars 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Broché) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Relié) >>>

Well, What Exactly Did You Expect the Pope to Say?
THE TELEGRAPH: It is absurd to expect him to move with the times.

Image courtesy of Google Images
When is a crowd of a million fans, fainting in the heat and being trampled to death in excitement, a sign of unpopularity? When you are Pope Benedict XVI, that's when. Despite the fact that his week-long tour of the African continent has been playing to record numbers, the Pontiff has had nothing but criticism from the First World press. He's a "disaster", he's "out of touch with the real world", his whole operation needs "a radical shake-up".

The failures, according to his critics, lie both in his medium and his message. The present Vatican has yet to come to terms with the worldwide, 24-hour blogosphere. The press office shuts up shop for the day at three in the afternoon. No one there has got to grips with Google. Stories leap out at strange times of the day and night, and they hadn't seen any of them coming. Bless… but who can blame them? It's a rum old world in which Jade Goody reaches near-sanctification for her telepathic relationship with the media and the Pope gets rubbished because he's baffled by it.

His message that Aids "cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even aggravate the problem" has infuriated health workers the world over. But what exactly is a Pope for? Is he there to make public service announcements in accordance with current scientific thinking, or is he there to stick up for what his Church has long believed in? The relationship between Catholics and condoms was strained long before Benedict XVI got the job. Millions of Catholic couples take the independent decision to practise contraception, but that is no reason for the Pope to change what he preaches. It is absurd even to expect him to move with the times. He's a religious leader, not an interior decorator.

Pope Benedict has yet to say anything I agree with. I don't think rock music is the spawn of the devil; it seemed to me barmy to take back into the church the bishop who had denied the Holocaust; and I wouldn't dream of taking contraceptive advice from a bachelor in his seventies. But then I'm not a Catholic. The Pope, it transpires, is. Deal with it. [Source: The Telegraph] By Gill Hornby | Tuesday, March 24, 2009

A Pope Who Seems Fallible
Photo of the Pope courtesy of Tribune de Genève
THE INDEPENDENT: From offending Jews and Muslims to saying condoms could make Africa's Aids crisis worse, Benedict XVI appears destined to blunder

On his first pontifical visit to Africa this week, Pope Benedict XVI set off another storm of controversy when he said that condoms were not only not the solution to the continent's Aids crisis but that they actually "make matters worse".

It was just the latest in an endless succession of high-profile gaffes that have made the brainiest pope of modern times also by a wide margin the most accident-prone.

In previous pratfalls the Bavarian theologian has welcomed back into the Church a bishop who flatly denies the existence of the Nazi gas chambers, refused to sign UN declarations on the rights of homosexuals and the disabled, denied the possibility of inter-religious dialogue after praying in a mosque, insulted Muslims en masse, and failed to mention the Jews while visiting Auschwitz.

Benedict's gaffes are becoming as frequent and predictable as Silvio Berlusconi's. And while Joseph Ratzinger has never cultivated the image of clown and raconteur so dear to the Italian PM, there is something else that the two men share: they wait for the grand occasion, when the world is hanging on their words, to drop their peculiar bombshells.

It was always going to be interesting to hear what Berlusconi had to say, standing alongside Russia's President Medvedev, about newly-elected President Obama. Berlusconi picked that moment to say that Obama "has a good tan". He chose the spotlight of a joint press conference to tell President Sarkozy, sotto voce but audibly, that Carla Bruni was his personal gift to the Frenchman.

Likewise, Pope Benedict picked his first trip to Africa to drop his condom bomb. Given the huge amount of flak the Church has received from Aids campaigners over the years for its failure to endorse the use of condoms in any circumstances, even within a marriage in which one partner is infected, this was not a subject that the pontiff could ignore. >>> By Peter Popham in Rome | Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Italy) >>>

Pope Claims Condoms Could Make African Aids Crisis Worse
THE GUARDIAN: Pontiff's remarks on first visit to continent outrage health agencies trying to halt spread of HIV and Aids

Pope Benedict XVI: Remarks have angered health workers trying to fight outbreak. Photo courtesy of The Guardian
The Pope today reignited the controversy over the Catholic church's stance on condom use as he made his first trip to Africa.

The pontiff said condoms were not the answer to the continent's fight against HIV and Aids and could make the problem worse.

Benedict XVI made his comments as he flew to Cameroon for the first leg of a six-day trip that will also see him travelling to Angola.

The timing of his remarks outraged health agencies trying to halt the spread of HIV and Aids in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 22 million people are infected.

The Roman Catholic church encourages sexual abstinence and fidelity to prevent the disease from spreading, but it is a policy that has divided some clergy working with Aids patients.

The pontiff, speaking to journalists on his flight, said the condition was "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems". >>> Riazat Butt | Tuesday, March 17, 2009

LEXPRESS.fr: Benoît XVI crée de nouveau la polémique

En route vers le Cameroun, première étape de son voyage d'une semaine sur le continent africain, Benoît XVI a lancé une nouvelle polémique. Dans la lutte contre le sida, qui fait des ravages en Afrique, la distribution de préservatifs "accroît le problème", a indiqué le Saint Père.

C'était son premier voyage en Afrique. Il devait évoquer les thèmes de la justice, de la réconciliation et de la paix. Patatras! Dans l'avion qui l'amenait au Cameroun, Benoît XVI a lâché "la" phrase de trop. Interrogé sur la bataille contre le sida sur le continent, le Saint-Père a répondu aux journalistes: "On ne peut la résoudre avec la distribution de préservatifs. Au contraire, cela accroît le problème." L'entourage du pape ne pouvait ignorer qu'il serait interrogé sur le sujet du sida, extrêmement sensible en Afrique, où les prêtres sont régulièrement confrontés à des cas de conscience, et parfois amenés à distribuer eux-mêmes des capotes. Il savait aussi combien Jean-Paul II fut maintes fois critiqué dans les médias occidentaux pour ne pas avoir pris position plus clairement sur l'usage du préservatif -ce qui, soit-dit en passant, eût été inconcevable de la part d'un pape. Benoît XVI était donc, pour parler clairement, "attendu au tournant". Sa réponse n'en a été que plus maladroite. "Il s'est mal exprimé, c'est vrai, mais il veut simplement dire que la fidélité au sein du couple est la seule façon efficace de combattre la pandémie", glisse un prêtre d'une paroisse rurale. >>> Par Claire Chartier | Mardi 17 Mars 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>