In the little world of Utah today blew up an incident (as I try not to think about that particular scene from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) regarding some complimentary condoms Planned Parenthood of Utah intended to have available at the upcoming SunStone Symposium.

Since I like KSL, here is the article. And the follow-up. In a nutshell, Planned Parenthood packaged some condoms with the CTR shield with the claim of getting people to talk about various choices of sexual protection. Cue the local Mormons getting offended.

And I happen to be a local Mormon!

To confess, my first reaction upon seeing a photo of the condoms was a hearty laugh. “Choose the right protection”. Yeah, it’s kind of funny. Even now I’m not particularly offended by this.

But I read internet comments, talk with people, and yeah, I totally get the offense.

CTR, Choose the Right, is a phrase taught to young Primary children. Kids under the age of 8. And someone decides to take such a phrase to discuss adult matters like sex. Doesn’t that seem a tad perverse?

The follow-up claim was made that PPH had no intention of offending anyone. Which makes me wonder just who in the organization is coming up with this kiddy-porn stuff. “Hey, let’s take a phrase and symbol the local big religion uses to teach their youngsters and use it to discuss sexual choices!” I’d sure hate to be the parent tricked into teaching her 1st grader about condoms way before the recommended sexual dialogue calendar.

Sure, we Mormons have this awesome Brigham Young quote about not being offended, but does that excuse the dense behavior of accidentally-not-accidentally taking a trademarked symbol primarily focused on primary kids and getting your panties in a wad when, gasp, a neighbor Mormon doesn’t like it?

The other argument I hear, and the one I feel deserves the most attention, is the fact that this little CTR shield is in fact a copyrighted symbol dating all the way back to the 70s. The LDS Church allows people to use it. Planned Parenthood apparently never even asked to be allowed to use it. It’s intellectual property, folks, and it’s not yours.

So here we are, with Planned Parenthood and a bunch of I-hate-Mormons folks all flustered because people were upset with their cutesy condom packaging.

What did they expect? Were they really counting on every Mormon in the state of Utah to just turn the other cheek when a copyrighted image is used without permission to inappropriately meld a child’s phase with a sex talk?

You might say it was done in innocent. You might even find the idea clever. But if you, even for a second, looked at this and thought “Yes! What a way to stick it to those Mormons!” you have made this campaign for intentionally offense. Way to go.

Me, personally, I figure the original action itself isn’t so big a deal. At least they weren’t using truly sacred symbols. But this reaction to people that are offended, that’s a biggie.

Planned Parenthood and everyone upset because some Mormons got upset, it’s childish to poke someone with a sharp stick and then cry when they don’t like it.