Vows, oaths, and pledges

Rabbi Marc Angel explains why virginity pledges don't work, although he's talking about loyalty oaths in Israel, and why they are a bad idea: "To those who are loyal to Israel, oaths are not necessary. To those who are not loyal, oaths won't help."

The other pledge

A condom company has created a condom pledge program. They'll give a free sample to anyone who takes the following pledge:

"I pledge to embrace and advocate for the use of condoms, as a proven way to reduce the risk of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections and as an essential part of living a sexually healthy lifestyle."

Already they have over 100,000 condom pledgers and have created a map of the pledgers' locations, a number which took the virginity pledge about 4 months to reach. Amusingly, the first minute of the video on their site could have been a video for an abstinence program.

Of course I support the message of the pledge, but somehow I don't see any reason to think this pledge would be any more effective than virginity pledges. Nice marketing idea, though! It looks like public service and piggybacks onto a well-known political issue at a time of high awareness.