Cultural Problems - Religious Problems
All religions have rules about sexual behavior. These rules may be few or many, general or specific, strict or lenient, but they are honored by the faithful even in the breach. Any AIDS prevention program trying to change sexual behavior must therefore take the religious views of its target populations into account. For example: Condom use has found support in some religions and condemnation in others.
In Thailand, a massive “100% condom program” was supported by Buddhist monks, and this greatly contributed to its success. In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church prohibits the use of condoms under any and all circumstances. This makes it difficult for health officials in predominantly Catholic countries to promote condom use as vigorously as they might wish. The resulting prevention campaigns can be half-hearted. Their target populations, on the other hand, may end up hearing a mixed message: Condom use is both good and bad – good from the standpoint of public health, but bad in the view of the church, good for the body, but bad for the soul.

As a rule, the three great monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – demand that sexual contact should take place only within marriage. However, there have been, and still are, both very conservative and rather liberal movements within each of these religions. Thus, they do not present a uniform picture. For example, most Prostestant Christian churches now favor the use of condoms as a protection against STDs, and so do most religious authorities in Judaism. In Islam, most religious teachers discourage the use of condoms as contraceptives, but declare them permissible for the prevention of STDs.