Residents Defend Pamphlet on Sex Education : Thousand Oaks: Protesters warn the Conejo Valley district that the booklet ties sexual issues to Christian values.

In a surprise counteroffensive, dozens of Thousand Oaks residents turned out at a school board meeting Thursday to support a sex-education pamphlet that has been criticized as unconstitutional.

Board members of the Thousand Oaks branch of the American Assn. of University Women followed through on a planned protest against a Conejo Valley Unified School District proposal to use the 19-page booklet, “How to Help Your Kids Say ‘No’ to Sex,” saying it ties sexual issues to Christian values.

But the seven opponents, including a local representative of Planned Parenthood, were overwhelmed by the booklet’s supporters among the approximately 100 people who attended the meeting.

Among the pamphlet’s backers were members of at least one church group, who wore white hand-written badges with messages such as “I’m 4 Abstinence” and “We Want the Pamphlets.”

“It is strictly a pamphlet to encourage abstinence, which I think we all agree is best for kids,” said parent Steve Logan, 41.

But association board member Susan Witting criticized the pamphlet in an interview before the meeting.

“In the public school system, there shouldn’t be any kind of emphasis that children should be one kind of religion,” Witting said. “The schools do not promote any religion over any other religion.”

The booklet promotes abstinence among youths and has been recommended as a teachers’ resource by the district’s sex-education committee.

The pamphlet’s first 10 pages contain anecdotes, statistics and other information promoting sexual abstinence as the best method for preventing unwanted pregnancies or the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases.

AAUW board members said they object to the pamphlet’s last nine pages, which list an extensive bibliography of other materials put out by the publisher, Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian organization based in Colorado Springs.

Much of the material is explicitly religious, referring to God, the Bible and abstinence as part of a Christian lifestyle.

One book, for instance, called “Sex and the New You,” is described as “relating sexuality to Christian concepts.”

“It’s not the issue of abstinence I’m opposed to,” said AAUW board member and parent Shoshana Brower, whose three children have graduated from Conejo Valley schools, where districtwide enrollment is about 18,000. “It’s the issue of the religious content of the pamphlet that I believe is a violation of church and state.”

The school board is expected to vote on the pamphlet’s use in the next month.

In an interview, board member Dorothy Beaubien dismissed the AAUW’s complaint that it would be unconstitutional to use the booklet in public schools.

“Garbage,” she said. “That’s ridiculous. The pamphlet itself does not advocate any particular religious attitude.”

As the school board representative on the Family Life Materials Review Committee, Beaubien is one of nine school officials, teachers, parents and two church pastors who unanimously approved the pamphlet for teaching AIDS prevention to seventh- and ninth-grade students.

Assistant Supt. Richard Simpson, who heads the committee, said the group accurately reflects the values of Thousand Oaks residents.

Formed in 1987 to review all proposed sex-education materials for the district, the committee has two rotating positions for representatives of the religious community that have always been filled by Christian clergy, he said. Members serve staggered two-year terms, except for the board representative and Simpson, who serve indefinitely.

Brower and other AAUW board members said they would like to see rabbis or representatives of other faiths besides Christianity represented on the committee.

Simpson said the district asked a local rabbi to join the committee two years ago, but the rabbi declined for scheduling reasons.

Simpson said the Focus on the Family booklet would be one of many teachers’ resources available for the acquired immune deficiency syndrome curriculum.

“This pamphlet has not been designed nor is it recommended for mass distribution to students,” Simpson said, though he added that individual students could have access to the book.

But Witting said any use of the pamphlet in the schools would be unconstitutional.

“If you have separation of church and state, then you have separation of church and state,” she said. “You don’t half-enforce the rule.”