The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, three medical associations and 10 other Rhode Island organizations yesterday urged principals and superintendents to reject a “questionable” federally financed abstinence-until-marriage sex education program approved by the state Department of Education.

The program, run by Heritage of Rhode Island, promotes “dangerous medical inaccuracies about pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted diseases” and “sends an inappropriate message to students from non-traditional households,” the ACLU said in a news release summarizing a two-page letter signed by the organizations.

But the Executive Director of Heritage of Rhode Island, Christopher C. Plante, said the campaign by the ACLU and others is “an effort to confuse the issues,” sometimes with its own misleading information.

For example, the ACLU fact sheet cites a 1999 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to say that condoms “greatly reduce” the risk of sexually-transmitted diseases other than AIDS. In fact, said Plante, a 2006 CDC report says condom use “may” cut the risk of diseases such as human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes most cases of cervical cancer.

The ACLU letter states, according to its release, that the organizations “do not oppose teaching abstinence to high school students. However, your students deserve information that is medically accurate, and not based on fear or shame or on stigmatizing teenagers who come from non-traditional households.”

The ACLU states that teenagers need information that will help protect them against sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and unintended pregnancy when they become sexually active. But the program in question, the ACLU adds, teaches that sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage “is wrong and harmful to people of any age.”

Also, the program teaches about contraception methods only “to emphasize failure rates.” The ACLU letter tells educators “it is a disservice to your students to have them taught by a program that, in too many instances, provides them the wrong lessons.”

Plante said “the healthiest choice any teenager can make is to refrain from all forms of sexual activity as an adolescent. Our teens need to understand that, they need to understand why that it’s important, and they need the skills to maintain that position,” which is why its supplemental education program is important.

That program emphasizes abstinence “so our teens can hear the most important message clearly,” Plante said. “Our teens need all the information. Heritage has never asked the Rhode Island Department of Education to only teach abstinence.”

In its letter to principals and superintendents, the ACLU argues that “allowing this five-hour program into your school will inevitably crowd out the time available for appropriate comprehensive sex education that should be taught by a certified teacher.”

The state Department of Education’s health education standards mandate that students show understanding of “responsible behaviors such as contraceptive [and] condom use” and understand that gays and lesbians “can establish fulfilling committed relationships,” the ACLU says.

The organizations signing the letter were: AIDS Care Ocean State, AIDS Project Rhode Island, National Association of Social Workers/R.I., PFLAG South/Central Rhode Island, Planned Parenthood of R.I., The Rhode Island Academy of Family Physicians, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Rhode Island Medical Society, Rhode Island N.O.W., the Rhode Island Teen Pregnancy Coalition, and Youth Pride.