Jewish Group Protests Condom Campaign

An Orthodox Jewish group is asking the city's health department to reconsider an advertising campaign that promotes condom use by urging New Yorkers to "get some."

The campaign, launched last week, "encourages young people to engage in casual sex" and is "grossly offensive," officials from Agudath Israel of America said in a letter sent yesterday to city health officials. The letter also was sent to Mayor Bloomberg; the city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Frieden; the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Dale Hemmerdinger, and the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, Edward Cardinal Egan.

In the letter, Agudath's executive vice president for government and public affairs, David Zwiebel, said his group historically has opposed the distribution of free condoms but took particular offense at the "get some" campaign, which undermines "good health." "From a purely health perspective, is it not true that abstinence is still a safer course than protected promiscuity?" he said. Last week, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights also criticized the health department's slogan.

In a statement issued last night, the health department defended its campaign, which kicked off last week to coincide with a redesign of the New York City brand condom. "The NYC Condom has been extremely effective in increasing condom distribution throughout the City," officials said. "We hope to have the same success with this new campaign, which was designed to be fun and engaging in order to further increase condom distribution, prevent the spread of disease, and save lives."

Last year, the city distributed 36 million free condoms.