Hemet Schools Sued Over Sex Curriculum : Education: Programs urge premarital abstinence. Critics say they ignore contraception and promote a skewed conservative agenda.

The Hemet Unified School District was sued Tuesday for using three sex education programs that promote premarital abstinence. Critics say they violate state curriculum guidelines and are inaccurate, biased and distorted.

The lawsuit on behalf of a group of Hemet parents is believed to be the first in California targeting the use of the controversial sex education programs known as Sex Respect, Teen-Aid and Choosing the Best.

The three programs are growing in popularity among conservative school boards nationwide because they preach that abstinence from premarital sex is the best way to avoid unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

The lawsuit charges that the texts harm students because they do not include a discussion of contraception, are gender-biased and promote a skewed, conservative moral agenda.

For example, one text preaches that “premarital sex, especially with more than one person, has been linked to the development of emotional illness.” Another handbook concludes that “one of the saddest things about today is so many men don’t want to be real fathers.”

The lawsuit was filed by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the civil liberties advocacy organization People for the American Way. An attorney for the plaintiffs said she did not expect the suit to go to trial for at least a year.

“Hemet students are the latest pawns in a battle being fought nationwide to replace real sexuality education with pre-censored educational materials that rely on fear, shame, religious indoctrination and blatant misinformation,” said Jean M. Hessburg, director of People for the American Way.

Mark Salo, executive director of Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties, charged the Hemet school board with using the district “as a playground to perpetuate its own selfish, rigid and narrow doctrine.”

While acknowledging the value of teaching that abstinence is a completely effective means of preventing pregnancy, he said that “vows of abstinence break more often than condoms do.”

“These curricula withhold information that can save lives and is vital in the preparation of adulthood,” he said.

In 1990, the Hemet school district adopted Sex Respect for use in seventh-grade classes. Last month, the board of education, over the objections of a curriculum advisory committee of teachers and parents, the district’s attorney and the superintendent, voted 5 to 2 to use the three programs this year in grades six, seven and nine.

The state sets guidelines for sex education as a component of health classes but does not approve specific texts or endorse particular curricula.

Hemet Associate Supt. William Wong said the district would not comment on the lawsuit.

But board of education member and seventh-grade teacher Bonnie Parks, who uses Sex Respect in her classroom, said the district will address the state-mandated subjects of contraception, HIV and AIDS with supplemental materials.

“We’re accused of not teaching kids about contraceptives, and that’s a lie,” she said. “We use Sex Respect and Teen-Aid to emphasize abstinence, but we use statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and other recognized authorities, as the law requires, to talk about the success and failure rates of contraceptives, including condoms.

“In my classroom, we hear about condoms on almost a daily basis. We say that condoms are not 100% effective but if someone chooses to disregard responsible sex in the only true safe way--abstinence--then condoms do reduce the risk and you’d be foolish not to use them,” she said.

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs said Tuesday that they were unaware that Hemet teachers planned to supplement the three abstinence-based programs with other materials.

Even so, the critics said, just presenting the contents of the three programs to students does them a disservice.

Other school districts that have adopted Sex Respect and similar programs have been threatened with lawsuits, but this is the first such suit filed in California, the program’s publisher and attorneys familiar with the programs said.

The ACLU threatened to file such a lawsuit against the Vista Unified School District in San Diego County but backed off after the district rewrote some controversial statements in the curriculum.

Parks said she questioned the motives of Planned Parenthood in filing the lawsuit. “I think they’re in it for their own profit and benefit because their big push is for contraceptives and abortions,” she said.

Parks said that 250 California school districts use Sex Respect but that fear of legal action keeps others from doing so.

“We have to stand up for what we think is right and best for the kids,” Parks said. “I think these programs are even more in keeping with California law than other comprehensive curricula, because the law says abstinence should be emphasized and the other programs lay it out like it’s just one choice on the smorgasbord.”