Washington Times distorts abstinence poll results

A January 22 article in The Washington Times inaccurately reports that the majority of young people support abstinence-only education.
Check it out:

Critics of abstinence-only sex-education programs may be too hasty in judgment. There is support for the method among age groups that count — the young.
According to a new Harris Poll, 56 percent of people ages 18 to 24, and 60 percent of those 25 to 29 think abstinence programs effectively reduce or prevent the occurrence of HIV/AIDS. Another 49 percent of people ages 18 to 24 and 52 percent of those ages 25 to 29 say the programs reduce or prevent unwanted pregnancies.

The problem is, the Harris poll didn’t ask respondents about abstinence-only education programs. They asked about “programs to promote abstinence.” All sex education programs promote abstinence!
Comprehensive sex education promotes abstinence as well as contraception use; abstinence-only education teaches that refraining from sex is the only option. But the reporting in this piece distorts that very big difference.
Even more:

Among six age groups and three political groups, younger respondents showed the strongest support for abstinence over safe-sex programs.

The Harris poll doesn’t ask if abstinence education is preferable over “safe-sex” programs. It only asks if “programs that promote abstinence” are effective. The questions listed on the poll don’t even mention “safe sex” programs.
The article goes on to confuse abstinence-only ed with the questions in the poll in a number of ways; you can check it out for yourself.
But I call bullshit.
(By the way: the majority of all the people polled thought that “programs that support abstinence” were not effective in reducing HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancies or extra-marital sex.)