A number of talks due to be given in Ireland this week by Jason Evert, the American Catholic campaigner who promotes conservative Catholic teaching around sex and marriage, have been cancelled following a backlash over the speaker’s views on homosexuality and contraception. Evert is the founder of the Chastity Project, a US initiative which promotes Catholic teaching on chastity among young people. Over the past twenty years, he and his wife Crystalina Evert have spoken to more than one million people on six continents. In his book Pure Manhood, Evert argues that “the homosexual act” is disordered and goes against God’s natural purpose for sex, which is for “babies and bonding”. He also strongly promotes Catholic teaching that the use of contraceptives by couples is also disordered and in opposition to God’s natural purpose for sex.