You used washing your hands as a parallel.
Let me expound on that parallel.
Let’s say you’re gardening with manure before lunch, or cleaning up a messy diaper,
then you eat lunch, and wash your hands after lunch because someone assured you that handwashing keeps you from getting sick. This is the parallel to improper usage of the prophylactic.
It’s a false sense of security leading to risky behavior that causes disease.
Now, can you honestly say that following moral laws such as having sex only in the context of marriage as intended wouldn’t be “more effective” than giving out condoms and encouraging risky behavior?
I read some years back that the AIDS virus is smaller than the microscopic holes in a condom.
The size comparison was something like 3 microns to 5 microns...but don't quote me on that.
“Safe sex” indeed.
The empirical evidence in Africa says yes. For several years, Uganda had much lower rates of HIV infection than most of its neighboring countries. The difference was that Uganda had a systematic program of discouraging risky sexual behaviors with a strong emphasis on abstinence as the BEST method of preventing the spread of HIV. The neighboring countries had aggressive condom distribution programs to promote "safer" sexual activity of using a product with a 15% failure rate at preventing pregnancy and not even measured in terms of the failure rate at preventing the spread of STD's. As health officials became more enlightened and decided to augment Uganda's HIV/AIDS prevention programs with the distribution of condoms, the rate of HIV infection started rising.