The Spanish-language ads, which you can listen to here and here, talk about the importance of condom use within communities of faith. After hearing from the Latino and Catholic communities, Univision has agreed to play the ads which will air over the holidays on Univision stations in New York City. We are thrilled that Univision has agreed to play the ads.
When Univision Radio refused to run our ads on three of their NYC stations, we asked you all to get involved. You took action in impressive numbers, sending emails to Mr. Stone with the message that this kind of censorship was unacceptable and that these messages are key to keeping our community safe. We want to thank all of you for taking action, especially those who passed the message along to their friends and family. And thank you to all the bloggers who posted about this issue, spreading the action even wider.
The great news is that Univision listened to you! We have the activism of the Latino community and our allies to thank for this win and Univision to thank for doing the right thing.
Catholics for Choice and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health are thankful that Univision Radio listened to the voices of Latinos and Catholics and heard that the community wanted these important messages about HIV prevention on the air. We appreciate Mr. Stone's willingness to do right by the Latino community and let the message be heard that Catholics use condoms because we know it is the responsible, loving and caring thing to do.
Thanks again for all your hard work and support. To keep up to date on this campaign, you can visit www.Condoms4Life.org or www.latinainstitute.org.
]]>Using its core message of "Good Catholics Use Condoms," the radio ads present a positive message to sexually active Catholics about responsibility and caring for others. The ads appeal to people of faith with one of the 60-second spots stating: "I'm Catholic and there is nothing more important to me than protecting family and love. That's why I talked to my grandson about condoms." The ads aim to remind people of faith that taking care of yourself and caring for each other means using condoms when you are sexually active.
Despite a fierce misinformation campaign waged by the Catholic hierarchy, we know that Catholic people the world over use condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV. Catholics use condoms because we know it is the responsible, loving and caring thing to do.
The first ad features a grandmother speaking about her grandson, a gay man, who hears that Catholics are not supposed to use condoms. She tells her grandson, "I took care of you because I love you and if you love that man, you'll take care of him, too."
The second ad features a couple and models language that couples can use when discussing the importance of love, faith and condom use in their relationship. The ad concludes, "We are Catholics and people of faith and we know sex is sacred and that we need to take care of each other. And this means using a condom every time we have sex."
We are delighted to be partnering on this innovative radio campaign because we are committed to making sure that that the younger generation of Latinos, who did not experience the scourge of AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s, are making sure that sex is safer and that our partners and ourselves are protected.
Working together, we recognize the special challenges Latino communities experience. Latinos represent almost 20 percent of new HIV infections occurring in the United States and young Latinas are twice as likely to face an unintended pregnancy as the general population. The Latino community faces many health disparities and it is time that we protect ourselves and our partners.
Largely because our religion has not always been honest about sex, there exists an embarrassed silence around condom use. It is our hope that we can show Catholic and Latino communities that it is time to break the silence and proclaim, as these ads do, that good Catholics use condoms. We want our communities to know that using condoms is one of the many ways that we can be proactive and make smart decisions about our sexual health.
To listen to the ads or for more information, visit www.Condoms4Life.org.
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