DENVER - The Catholic News Agency, an Internet-based news agency, published an article Wednesday claiming a Planned Parenthood website is promoting pornography.
Citing reports from the Cybercast News Service, the staff article said the site TeenWire.com, which is billed as an award-winning sexual health website for teens, advocates the use of pornography as a "lower-risk form of outercourse" and advises one reader that masturbation to pornographic material does not constitute cheating on his girlfriend.
Teenwire.com does mention porn in several articles on the site, including one that says actors and actresses have unrealistic body images and portray unrealistic sex.
"Condoms aren't the only things most porn characters forget to mention - in fact, they hardly talk at all," the article states. "While communication is part of a healthy sex life, porn couples usually don't say much before, during or after they have sex. Intimacy is important for many real couples, but it is rare in porn."
In the Catholic News Agency article, Cris Clapp, congressional liaison for the anti-pornography group Enough is Enough, told Cybercast News Service that TeenWire.com lacked key information.
"Overall, TeenWire.com has painted a picture that pornography is harmless fun," he said.
Clapp said Internet pornography includes very graphic content, including violent sexual images.
Cybercast News Service reported that repeated requests for interviews with Planned Parenthood or TeenWire.com staff members went unanswered.
The Catholic News Agency is designed to "provide free, up-to-the-minute news affecting the Universal Church, giving particular emphasis to the words of the Holy Father and happenings of the Holy See, to any person with access to the Internet," its website states.
The Cybercast News Service was formed in 1998 by its parent company, the Media Research Center, after that organization's studies found what it considered "a liberal bias in many news outlets - bias by commission and bias by omission - that results in a frequent double standard in editorial decisions on what constitutes ‘news.'"
"CNSNews.com endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story and debunk popular, albeit incorrect, myths about cultural and policy issues," the agency's website states.
