A state House lawmaker complained Thursday that a pilot sex education curriculum for middle school students is not medically accurate or age appropriate, and deliberately minimizes the health risks of homosexual behavior.

Pono Choices is part of the state Department of Education’s abstinence-based sex education policy but also emphasizes condom use to reduce the risk of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The pilot curriculum is now in 12 schools, with eight other schools scheduled for training.

Parents who object to the curriculum are able to keep their children out of the instruction.

Rep. Bob McDermott (R, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point), who said he believes homosexuality is "aberrant," said Pono Choices wrongly depicts homosexual behavior as normal and healthy, and sexual activity as recreation, not procreation.

The Department of Education had withheld the full curriculum from him unless he would agree to review the material with educators who had prepared the instruction, but he said he obtained a copy from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, which developed the curriculum.

McDermott first called attention to Pono Choices last year during the debate over gay marriage. Conservatives warned that if gay marriage became state law, homosexuality would increasingly be taught in public schools as a normal and acceptable sexual behavior.

McDermott said he wants the state Board of Education to either pull Pono Choices from public schools or make revisions to the content.

"It conflates and confuses oral, anal and genital sex repeatedly throughout the program — repeatedly it’s always mentioned in the same breath," he said at a news conference at the state Capitol. "That is designed to devalue male-female relationships and elevate the male-on-male relationship, to create an equality of behavior across the board."

Pono Choices, in a slide on the definition of sex, describes genitals as the "penis, scrotum, vagina, vulva, anus." McDermott questioned why the anus would be listed as a genital, which usually pertains to a reproductive organ.

The curriculum also presents students with a variety of scenarios and asks them whether they are high-risk, low-risk or no-risk behaviors. The scenarios include holding hands — classified as no-risk; unprotected vaginal sex — classified as high-risk; and anal sex using a condom — classified as low-risk. McDermott asked why unprotected anal sex, which poses a high-risk of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was not included as one of the scenarios.

"The risks of anal sex — the risks, the real risks — are omitted. They’re not explained," he said. "It is unhealthy at best and lethal at worst. This is not age-appropriate for an 11-year-old student."

The Department of Education put Pono Choices on hold in late November after complaints by McDermott and other conservatives about its content. The department lifted the hold in December after confirming that the curriculum is "medically accurate, appropriate and aligned with health education, state law and DOE policy."

Donalyn Dela Cruz, a department spokeswoman, said Thursday that the department had nothing more to add to its December conclusion.

Dela Cruz referred questions about McDermott’s specific complaints to UH. Elmer Kaai, director of advancement at the UH chancellor’s office, said a university representative would respond, but the university failed to answer questions by Thursday evening.

McDermott has challenged the gay marriage law in court, while he and other conservatives have called Pono Choices proof that liberal gay rights advocates want to influence school curriculum.

The Hawaii Republican Assembly, which represents conservative Republicans, has made Pono Choices part of a crusade against both Democrats and moderate Republicans, mocking the curriculum as "Porno Choices."