Dispute Over Sex Education Booklet Grows : Thousand Oaks: The schools consider adopting the Christian group’s pamphlet. Critics say it eschews safe practices.

Representatives of Planned Parenthood have joined the battle over a sex-education pamphlet published by a conservative Christian group, broadening the debate over the booklet that the Thousand Oaks school board will consider adopting tonight.

The Conejo Valley Unified School District board is scheduled to decide whether to approve a booklet, “How to Help Your Kids Say ‘No’ to Sex,” which promotes sexual abstinence among students.

The local chapter of the American Assn. of University Women launched the first protest against the brochure two weeks ago, contending that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state because it ties sex education to Christian values.

Although the university women object to the pamphlet’s references to the Bible and Christianity, they have emphasized that they support teaching sexual abstinence to students.

Representatives of Planned Parenthood, however, have focused their objections on the booklet’s suggestion that adults should teach abstinence to the exclusion of safe-sex education, such as using condoms as protection against disease and pregnancy.

“It’s basically advocating that other information not be given,” said Scott McCann, education director for Planned Parenthood of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties. “It’s also misleading.”

McCann said many of the brochure’s local supporters share the conservative Christian agenda of the booklet’s publisher, the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based group Focus on the Family. The group was founded by James C. Dobson, a popular psychologist and Christian radio broadcaster.

More than 100 parents and other residents turned out in favor of the pamphlet at a school board meeting two weeks ago, overwhelming the handful of brochure opponents.

“Some of these people are opposed to any premarital sex, so they’re using the AIDS scare to push what are basically their own religious values,” McCann said.

He said Focus on the Family plays on the fears of parents who don’t share the group’s values but are concerned about their children contracting AIDS.

But Jan Seidel, a mother of three, said supporters of the brochure are motivated by one thing. “This is just parents and community people concerned about their kids,” Seidel said.

She dismissed the arguments of the university women and Planned Parenthood that the district should choose another pro-abstinence pamphlet from among the many published sex-education materials.

“This is an excellent pamphlet,” she said. “I haven’t seen anything better.”

The brochure was recommended to the Thousand Oaks school board by the district’s Family Life Education Materials Committee. The 13-member group of parents, representatives of the religious community and teachers is appointed by district officials to review proposed sex-education materials.

The first 10 pages of the brochure contain anecdotes, statistics and other information promoting abstinence as the best method for protecting against unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases.

The last nine pages are an extensive list of other reading and viewing materials that can be ordered from Focus on the Family. One of the references, for instance, is a pamphlet called “Love, Sex and God” that gives teen-agers “biblical guidelines for social life.”

While the university women have objected to the bibliography’s religious references, Planned Parenthood has attacked the main body of the brochure.

McCann said the booklet cites some statistics in a misleading way, such as a reference to one study that found that the condom-failure rate among unmarried Latino women is 44.5%. The brochure, he said, fails to mention that the women in the study became pregnant because they weren’t using condoms regularly.

McCann said Planned Parenthood also supports promoting sexual abstinence among youths.

“If this pamphlet were objective and accurate,” he said, “we wouldn’t have a problem with it.”