February 7, 2006 | Sex & Society

Prudish politicians unplug safer sex site

A safe sex website that was designed for young people in Vermont will be back up this month thanks to the state Senate, which has ordered old farts in the governor's office to restore access to the site after they pulled its plug in December because it had a link to an adult website.

TheManPhone.org was created in order to distribute information on safe sex to sexually active men between the ages of 18 and 24. Paid for by a federal grant, the website was designed especially for Generation Y and included information on unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV / AIDS.

However, it also included a link to a website that contained alleged pornography, which prompted the state's Health Department to disable it in December. The offending link has since been removed, says the Health Department, which has promised to re-establish the site soon, according to a report by 365Gay.com.

If you ask the state Senate, however, "soon" is not soon enough, as the website remains "temporarily unavailable." To make sure that it is operational again as quickly as possible, the Senate has ordered the governor's office to turn it on again by March 1.

"We support education campaigns targeted to this particularly high-risk population," Jason Gibbs, a spokesman for Gov. James Douglas, said. "But we want to be sure the material is scientifically based and compelling and we also want to be sure it's not an inviting target for someone to peddle porn."

State senators disagree with the governor's resistance to the site. "The reason this was so successful was the edginess of it," said state Sen. Jeannette White. "The edginess appealed to this population."

At least someone in the government has a clue!

• VT Senate orders Governor to restore gay website [365gay.com]