MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Two Jackson County-sponsored television ads promoting condom use among teenagers have drawn rave reviews from community leaders.

The two 30-second ads, which will air on local stations by October, promote “responsible sexuality” by using parental support to encourage condom use, said Jackson County Commissioner Jack Walker.

About 100 clergy, media, social service workers and educators gathered to review the ads with a southern Oregon audience in mind. “I think you should play it from morning to night!” said Rosemary Harrington, who hosts a conservative radio talk show. “Have you seen what these kids watch on TV?”

One ad features the words, “We care about you. Protect yourself. Love, Mom and Dad,” with some of the “O’s” replaced by unwrapped condoms.

In the other ad, two teenagers are shown in the throes of passion. The boy says, “I want this moment to last forever.” The girl opens an envelope that reads “Love, Mom and Dad,” and takes out a condom. “I don’t,” she tells him.

The ads were co-sponsored by the local Planned Parenthood affiliate and Jackson County health officials. Promoters were inspired by European media campaigns, which have dramatically reduced risky sexual behavior in France and Germany, said Wolfgang Mueller, a German specialist in HIV and sexually transmitted disease prevention.

In Germany, statistics show that safe-sex ad campaigns reached more than 80 percent of the general population and more than 90 percent of young people over nearly 30 years.

State Rep. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, said local safe sex promoters need to continue their efforts.

“This is about safety,” he said. “We should be doing this. The next ad should say where you can get those condoms.”

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A Eugene man hopes to make a free-speech issue of his conviction on 50 charges alleging he downloaded child pornography and used it to induce a 15-year-old boy into sexual acts.

Kurt Allen Downs, 53, entered a plea deal for a maximum 20-year term, in part to challenge Oregon court rulings that make his actions a crime, defense lawyer Elizabeth Baker said.

Downs pleaded guilty to sexual abuse, sodomy and encouraging child sexual abuse.

The appeal on the 50 other charges, relating to Downs obtaining and passing along Internet child pornography, could test Oregon’s laws making both downloading and sharing child pornography illegal, Baker said.

Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings indicate it may consider downloading child pornography for personal use to be protected free speech.

It also indicated that transmitting child porn may not be a crime unless prosecutors have proof of the sender’s intent.

The Oregon Supreme Court has said transmitters of child pornography are presumed to intend to induce someone else into sexual activity, Baker said.

Appeals of the case through the state and federal appellate system can take years, if the courts will hear it.

The case came to light in June when the 15-year-old was charged with molesting a 4-year-old boy. The teenager told police he was acting on Downs’ suggestions.

Downs and the 15-year-old met on the Internet at a site designated for gay Oregon teenagers, an affidavit says.

BOSTON (AP) — The prison inmate accused of killing defrocked priest John Geoghan in his cell said anyone accused of molesting children should be castrated or rendered impotent, according to a letter he sent to the Boston Herald.

In the letter, Joseph Druce, who identifies himself as “the exterminator of child predator Geoghan J.,” proposed 10 ways to deal with pedophiles, including “castration and impident (sic) implants” for repeat offenders.

Druce, 37, is scheduled to be arraigned on a first-degree murder charge for the Aug. 23 beating and strangulation of Geoghan.

Geoghan, 68, was serving a nine- to 10-year sentence for groping a 10-year-old boy and was accused of molesting nearly 150 boys over three decades as a priest in the Boston Archdiocese. His case figured prominently in the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the nation’s Roman Catholic Church.

Druce is serving a life sentence for murdering a gay man.

In the letter dated Sept. 12, Druce suggests first-time offenders should be sentenced to a minimum 10 years in prison, be forced to confess to the crime and undergo “phyco therapy” three days a week.

He also suggests a permanent order barring offenders from within 500 feet of a school or playground as well as a ban on contact with any “human under the age of 17.”

Last week, Druce wrote to the Catholic Free Press of Worcester, apologized to Geoghan’s sister, and said he was a victim of child sex abuse.

JACKSON, Mich. (AP) — Jackson County commissioners have passed a resolution against gay marriage.

The commissioners voted 7-3 on the resolution. It supports a definition of marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman.

While it carries no legal weight, opponents of the resolution say it will hurt the community’s reputation.

“Because of the lack of necessity for the vote, I think it can only send one message, which is a message of intolerance,” Neeta Delaney, director of a planned Jackson artists’ community, told The Jackson Citizen Patriot for a story.

But county commissioner Rick Baxter, a Republican who voted for the resolution, said the matter was important to the county.

“The historical, grammatical and contextual definition of marriage is one man and one woman,” Baxter said. “Why is this important? What it means to be married ultimately affects the family unit and what it means to be a family.”

Oakland County passed a similar resolution against gay marriage earlier this month.

No legislation on gay marriage has been introduced in Lansing, although state Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, has promised such a bill this fall.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Hinds County Circuit judge has refused to set bond or release from jail an HIV-positive man who says he needs surgery.

Terry Curtis, 29, was seeking release from the Hinds County Detention Center on his own recognizance or on bail on a 2002 charge of receiving stolen goods. He is accused of stealing or knowing that a 1989 Chevrolet Blazer was stolen.

Jackson police found Curtis in the vehicle. He has been in the detention center since his March 9 arrest.

Curtis’ attorney, Kimalon Campbell, said Curtis needs surgery to cure a problem causing major swelling in his leg.

“It will be costly to the county if the county has to have the surgery done,” Campbell told Circuit Judge Swan Yerger.

Campbell didn’t know how much the surgery would cost. She also said in a motion that Curtis is suffering from numerous unnamed serious illnesses.

Assistant District Attorney Myrick Jackson opposed Curtis’ release on his own recognizance because Curtis was indicted as a habitual offender. Curtis was convicted of possession of cocaine in 1992 and of receiving stolen goods in 1997, according to court records.

Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps has said an inmate’s medical problems aren’t a consideration when it comes to incarceration. He said MDOC has doctors on staff.

WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J. (AP) — Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. said that it has started the first global human tests of an experimental AIDS vaccine, working with the Seattle-based HIV Vaccine Trials Network.

The experiment, which will include about 435 adult volunteers not infected with the HIV virus, is meant to determine if the vaccine candidate is safe, has tolerable side effects and is practical to administer in different parts of the world. Researchers will also determine whether the vaccine stimulates an immune response in people.

The study is being conducted in 18 cities in North America, South America, the Caribbean, southern Africa and Southeast Asia. Using such diverse testing sites is important because different strains of the HIV virus circulate in different regions. The vaccine is made from a modified cold virus and does not contain any live HIV virus, so it cannot cause HIV infection.

Merck currently is running tests of other potential HIV vaccines on people, including an experiment announced earlier this week in which is testing combination of one of its experimental AIDS vaccines and another from Aventis Pasteur. Whitehouse Station-based Merck began doing human tests of experimental HIV vaccines in late 1999.

The vaccine trials network is supported by the National Institutes of the Health.