Feminist Power: The Battle of Houston

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life!” exclaimed black Texas state representative Clay Smothers in an address at the Saturday afternoon Pro-Life, Pro-Family Coalition rally in Houston last month. “It seems like we’re inside a black Baptist church!”

Instead, it was the Astroarena, where an overflow crowd of 15,000 had assembled. There were prayers, band music, and cheering and waving of hundreds of banners as a succession of thirteen speakers decried the aims of the feminist movement and called for legislation to protect the family unit. The rally was held in opposition to the much-publicized National Women’s Conference being held at a convention center in another part of town that weekend.

The counter-feminist rally was the apex of anti-feminist efforts that had been gathering steam over the past several months as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was voted down in Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, and Illinois. Only one state—Indiana—ratified the ERA in the past year.

Meanwhile, the feminist cause got up its own steam through a series of state women’s conventions attended by an estimated 140,000 women. These conventions led to the national conference in Houston, which was attended by more than 12,000 delegates and observers. The feminists were able to get federal funding for their meetings; conservatives had to rely on private donations to stage their rally.

Through the influence of former congresswoman Bella Abzug, Congress appropriated $5 million in 1975 to celebrate the International Women’s Year (IWY) and to get an answer to the question, “What do American women want?” The IWY commission, appointed by President Carter and headed by Ms. Abzug, drew up a “National Plan of Action” comprising the agenda for the state conventions and the national convention. Since only one anti-ERA member and forty-five ERA proponents were appointed to the commission, no one was surprised that feminists almost totally controlled the state conventions and the elections of delegates to Houston.

When the state conventions were over, IWY commissioners appointed almost 500 additional delegates at large, all of them reportedly pro-ERA. The result; a slim 15 per cent of the nearly 2,000 IWY delegates to Houston were pro-life, pro-family delegates. They came primarily from Oklahoma, Utah, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Indiana.

The revised action plan presented to the national conference contained twenty-six resolutions. The resolution topics ranged from battered women and equal credit opportunities to married women’s rights and health security. The only resolution defeated was one calling for establishment of a cabinet-level women’s department in the national government. Conservative delegates complained that they were given almost no opportunity to speak against the resolutions, which led to charges of rigging. Some delegates reported it was a “rubber-stamp convention.”

Predictably, four items on the agenda turned out to be what the press called the “hot-button” issues. They were:

• A resolution advocating ratification of the ERA to enforce and advance equality for women in such areas as pay and jobs.

• A “reproductive freedom” resolution asking that government funds be available for abortion on demand.

• A resolution calling for federally funded, twenty-four-hour child development centers. (The October issue of Public Interest predicted costs of programs requested by child-care activists could reach $25 billion annually.)

• A “sexual preference” act calling for full legal rights for homosexuals and lesbians. (This would include legalization of homosexual marriages, child-custody rights for homosexuals, and freedom to teach homosexuality as an alternative life-style in the schools.)

More than 200 delegates marched to the podium in protest and displayed prolife placards immediately after passage of the abortion measure, and nearly that many stood with their backs to the platform and their hands folded in a posture of prayer after the gay-rights plank was adopted.

Working against hopeless odds as far as votes were concerned, conservative groups sought other means to make their voices heard. About thirty-five organizations, including Eagle Forum, the National Right to Life movement, the National Council of Catholic Women, March for Life, and a pro-family group known as the Association of W’s, formed the Pro-Life, Pro-Family Coalition (PLPFC) and scheduled their own rally in Houston on the same weekend as the IWY conference.

Through a grass-roots network reaching all the states, word spread in conservative religious circles that counter-feminists as well as feminists were gathering in Houston. Christians were active on both sides; most evangelicals and other conservative churchgoers, however, tended to identify with the counter-feminists. About one-half of the IWY delegates were identified as Protestants and one-fourth as Roman Catholics. In some cases members of the same denomination who were IWY delegates differed sharply on the issues. One group of members of various denominations organized themselves into an ad hoc body known as “Feminists of Faith for the National Plan of Action” to combat the image that religious women are anti-feminists. Among the IWY commissioners was General Secretary Claire Randall of the National Council of Churches. She served as moderator of the Feminists of Faith group.

For those unable to travel to Texas, numerous PLPFC meetings were held across the country in state capitals. Aggregate attendance was reported as more than 50,000.

PLPFC rally participants passed four resolutions of their own, calling for:

• A human life amendment to protect unborn children.

• Assurance that child development programs be controlled by the private sector.

• Opposition to ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

• Protection of the family by forbidding homosexuality, lesbianism, or prostitution to be taught or promoted as alternative life-styles in the schools.

More than 300,000 signed copies of these resolutions were stacked on the stage at the Houston rally. “We’re here to show they [the feminists] do not represent the view of the American people,” declared Phyllis Schlafly, an Illinois housewife with a Harvard law degree. A Catholic and noted author, she was the primary spokesperson for the conservative camp.

Meanwhile, there have been press reports of a new unity among the “sisterhood,” epitomized by feminist author Betty Friedan’s announcement that she is now willing to include the fight for lesbian rights in the women’s movement. Some predict that the embracing of such radical causes may be the undoing of the drive to make the ERA part of the U.S. Constitution.

Conservative observers at the IWY convention expressed disgust when lesbian delegates, celebrating passage of the sexual preference act, released pink and yellow balloons bearing the slogan, “We are everywhere!” A group of Bible-school students witnessing to delegates at the convention exhibit area reported that women’s sex manuals and paraphernalia were on sale at the official lesbian booth. At least sixty IWY delegates were avowed lesbians, and 3,000 more attended as observers, according to news accounts.

Housewife Rita Koomen, 45, of Rochester, New York, a mother of five, who attended the PLPFC rally, told a New York Times reporter that she is against gay rights because homosexuals are not “born that way, [but] they’re made, and they’ll influence our children if they start teaching their life-style in our schools.” It was a concern voiced by many at the rally.

Singer Anita Bryant, recently under attack for her stand against allowing homosexuals to teach in public schools, sent a filmed message expressing her support of PLPFC efforts. She called the IWY a waste of the American taxpayer’s money and said the meeting was “pro-lesbian, pro-abortion, and pro many other things that aren’t representative of the thinking of most American women.” (The PLPFC coalition has filed a lawsuit against the IWY organizers, charging misuse of federal funds.)

Rally coordinator Lottie Beth Hobbs reported that first-lady Rosalynn Carter declined an invitation to address the Saturday afternoon gathering, saying she had a “prior commitment.” She and former first ladies Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson appeared in Houston at a fundraising rally for the ERA cause on Friday night and addressed the opening IWY session on Saturday morning. California congressman Robert Dornan, speaking at the pro-life rally, urged the press to “tell Mr. Carter his wife was at the wrong meeting!”

Perhaps the only universal opinion coming from the historic weekend in Houston is that both sides went home determined to redouble their efforts. ERA proponents are working to defeat state legislators up for reelection who voted against ERA. Conservative groups are urging constituents to write to their representatives in Washington telling them to vote against a House resolution that would extend the deadline for ERA ratification another seven years.

“Whether or not you’re for the women’s movement, it has changed your life,” commented one IWY conferee to a woman reporter.

Most Admired

The editors of Good Housekeeping still find it hard to believe the results of their annual poll of women readers to determine “the most admired woman in the world.” But after all the checking and double-checking of the 10,000 votes, the results were the same—with singer Anita Bryant far ahead of Mother Teresa of India and Rosalynn Carter. Only Pat Nixon came close.

A number of the editors reportedly were “surprised and distressed” at the outcome. Editor-in-chief John Mack Carter speculated that Miss Bryant’s stand on gays was one factor but that the poll “wasn’t a vote on homosexuality.” Said he: “I’m convinced she won because of her courage in standing up on a religious conviction and speaking out. It was an expression of admiration for a woman willing to get involved in a controversy.”

The controversy may be costly. At about the same time the poll results were announced, NBC television dropped Miss Bryant as the Orange Bowl Parade commentator after nine years on the job. She also has been having difficulty finding a producer for her new record, “There’s Nothing Like the Love Between a Woman and a Man,” according to her husband-manager Bob Greene. And even though she’s been signed on to promote Florida orange juice another year, there are indications that several others are being groomed for the job.

Abortion Funding

After months of congressional wrangling, the federal government is back in the abortion business. When President Carter signed the appropriation bill funding the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) this month he gave his approval to a new set of rules for allocation of tax money to end pregnancies. The final guidelines for Medicaid payments allow abortions for victims of rape or incest and for women who can get two physicians to sign a certificate stating that severe or long-lasting damage to physical health would result if the pregnancy were carried to full term.

Before an abortion ban went into effect last June (the “Hyde amendment”), Medicaid had funded about 260,000 abortions in the previous twelve months. The strict ban in effect until Congress passed the new appropriation bill permitted federal funding only where a doctor certified that a mother’s life was endangered by her pregnancy. Experts estimate that the new rules will permit about 120,000 U.S. paid abortions for the medically indigent.

President Carter, who pledged during his campaign to cut the flow of government money to those seeking to end pregnancies, said when he signed the appropriation bill that it would limit the use of federal funds for abortions. His HEW secretary, Joseph Califano, is also on record in opposition to the operations, but he ordered his department to pay those bills that meet the tests imposed by the new law. The final formula was worked out between Senate and House conferees, who were under almost unprecedented pressure from their respective bodies not to yield. House members wanted stricter language than the majority of the Senate.

The appropriation bill, while covering Medicaid funding, did nothing to control the number of abortions provided by the government to its own employees and their dependents. HEW lawyers were reported checking to see if the new legislation affected payments under the group health policies carried on HEW staff members. The attorneys have tentatively concluded that HEW personnel will still be able to claim payment for the operations, the New York Times reported.

Federal employees and dependents are covered by a variety of health plans, but more than 13,000 are estimated to have received abortions under civilian policies in the last year for which figures are available. Under the umbrella of the Department of Defense, a total of 12,687 abortions were performed on military women and dependents of military personnel during the last year for which figures have been released. The government estimates that such a procedure costs $360 in a military hospital.

Tax money supports the practice at other governmental levels also, and some of the pro-life cause’s attention is now being directed at state and local policymakers. The insurance carrier for the state of New York employees’ group reported 350 abortion claims in 1976, for instance. In Massachusetts, vigorous lobbying by pro-life groups put a ban on Medicaid funding of abortions into an appropriation bill, but Governor Michael Dukakis vetoed it. His position was challenged, but opponents could not muster enough votes to override his veto. Journalists described the battle in Massachusetts’ state house as a “holy war.”

Following congressional action on the new federal Medicaid policy, pro-abortion forces moved their battle into the courts, asking a judge in New York to throw out the new rules on grounds they impose one “religious viewpoint” and serve no secular purpose. Director James McHugh, national director of Catholic pro-life activities, responded, “We are not going to be intimidated by lawsuits, threats, or harassment from individuals or organizations. Every church has a right to speak out on human rights issues and human dignity. The Constitution was never intended to silence churches in this democracy.”

The small but vocal Christian Action Council continued to try to negate the pro-abortion forces’ claim that pro-life is only a Catholic position. Leaders of the group called a press conference at the height of the controversy in Congress and released a statement that emphasized Protestant opposition to abortion. They said: “It is a matter of historical record that each of the major evangelical communities arising out of the Reformation has shared the common Christian understanding that human beings, even during their pre-natal development, are bearers of God’s image and merit not only our respect but the highest degree of protection that civil law can give them. Those Protestant ‘spokesmen’ who refuse this respect also—unfortunately—all too often show scant concern for biblical authority in other areas.”

With the heat off Congress for the time being, more pressure is expected during coming months on state legislatures. Prolife forces are continuing to press for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion on demand and for stricter controls on state funding of the operations. Efforts are being intensified in campaigns to elect pro-life legislators and to defeat candidates who hold the opposite view.

Baiting the Hook

A 20-year old Irish girl who left the Children of God (COG) earlier this year went to court in Akron, Ohio, last month in an attempt to gain permanent custody of her two sons, aged 3 and 22 months. Testimony at the hearing cast new light on controversial COG practices. Mrs. Una Krownapple stated that her decision to split with the group was influenced by directives from COG founder “Moses” David Berg that instructed female members to “sacrifice” their bodies, if necessary, to attract potential male members and donors. She testified that the “flirty fish” policy, in which girls in the COG are exhorted to be “hookers for Jesus,” had been practiced at the leadership level for several years. But not until 1976 did religious prostitution become a way of life for the group’s claimed 8,000 disciples (including 1,200 children) in more than 800 colonies in seventy-three countries around the world, she said.

John and Una Krownapple were married in England four years ago—first when they “got together” in a COG colony, then later in a legal ceremony at the insistence of Una’s parents. Both had joined the COG a year prior to their marriage. The couple sojourned in COG colonies in Scandinavia until last April, when they returned to England. A month earlier, while in Norway, a visit from John’s brother culminated in an affair with Una—who testified that the adulterous relationship was initiated at her husband’s suggestion for the purpose of winning him to the COG. But when theory was translated into practice, her husband opposed the liaison, she said.

Leaving his wife with her parents in England, John Krownapple took the children to his mother’s home in Akron last May. In September Una joined them there—but her husband then reentered the COG and moved into the Columbus colony. Two weeks later he telephoned Una and told her that he had decided to leave the group, rejoin his family, and go to college. He returned to Akron for a week, then stole away with the children to an undisclosed destination. Una suspected that he had gone back to Columbus. She managed to locate the COG colony, where her suspicions were confirmed. After much persuasion, she said, she was permitted to see the children briefly. To thwart her husband’s possible efforts to remove the children elsewhere, Una maintained a three-day vigil at the colony. At last her attorney succeeded in securing a court order granting her temporary custody of the children. Pending the outcome of the guardianship hearing before Probate Judge Nathan Koplin, Una and the children are living in public housing and receiving welfare benefits. She hopes to remain in Akron and to attend college. Upon completion of the six-months residency requirement, she plans to file for divorce.

John Krownapple, under oath, readily admitted that the COG organization approves—and practices—sexual prostitution for the purpose of winning converts. “We go out to discotheques,” he related, “and we witness to people to win their souls. And in extreme cases, where all parties are in agreement, with people that have been in our group for a long time, if it comes to that, they are permitted to go all the way, if they wish.” He said he personally had not had sexual contact with a prospective member. He further testified that he believes David Berg to be a “prophet” and that he therefore accepts the “counsel” offered in Berg’s “Mo Letters.” He admitted that sharing his wife would be “hard” but he asserted that “God’s grace is sufficient.” “In an extreme case, for someone’s soul,” he said, “I would share my wife.”

Una, questioned by her attorney, William Hewitt, explained the “flirty fish” policy advocated by Berg: “You might go to a discotheque with your husband. He’s the fisherman, you’re the bait. So you might go to [a man selected by the husband] … and ask him to dance. And while you’re dancing you don’t directly approach him with your message, but you gain his confidence, you act affectionately.… You don’t always go to bed with [him]. But if they think it might help win his soul, he might suggest it or you might suggest it, or [you] just go to bed.” She stated, however, that the experience with her brother-in-law was her “first … and last” of this nature. Compliance with the policy, she said, is mandatory. She had the option of either going along with it or leaving the cult, she asserted. She decided to leave.

Former COG member Jack Wasson (see February 18, 1977, issue, page 18) arrived from Dallas with an armful of sex-oriented Mo Letters, scores of which were presented as evidence in support of Mrs. Krownapple’s contention that the COG are unfit for the custody of her children. Wasson stated that the sex theme has dominated 50 per ent of COG literature since 1974. In a 1974 letter entitled “The Hooker!—A Fisherman Instructs His Bait” Berg chides Maria, highest ranked of his common-law wives, for not being more aggressive in enticing male prospects into sexual relationships: “How are they going to get hooked, honey, unless they go to bed with you?” Seducing techniques are graphically described and pornographically illustrated in the pamphlet. And how did Berg, a former minister, acquire his knowledge? He says he has “been in plenty of” houses of ill repute. In support of the doctrine, Matthew 4:19 is quoted: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men!” Also cited was a 1976 letter, “God’s Whores?” In it, Berg exclaims, “God is a pimp!. He uses his Church all the time to win souls.… God gives you such grace you’ll want to go to bed with them to show them how much you love them.” In “The Men Who Play God!” (October 10, 1976) Berg praises Maria for having “the highest bed record of all” his female disciples. He exulted that as a result of the sexual seduction strategy “over 150 of these men have been saved already …!”

Mrs. Dorothy Senek of Newton Falls, Ohio, took the stand to tell of the loss of her son David to the COG seven years ago. Overnight his personality underwent a radical change, she said. They have not seen him since an angry confrontation on New Year’s Day, 1973. In 1971 David’s COG marriage to Melissa Moody, daughter of John Moody, then senior vice-president of Mobil Oil, was announced in The New York Times. The marriage was short-lived. At last report young Senek was performing in a COG musical group in Europe with Jeremy Spencer, former star of the British rock group Fleetwood Mac.

In addition to familial alienation, the hearing discosed that family units in the COG are submerged in the larger family of the colony. Parental control of children is subject to the higher authority of the colony shepherd, according to testimony given by Wasson. While he was living in Amsterdam in 1973, he alleged, the colony house was exchanged for a printing press, and the residents were moved to a park. There they lived under rigorous conditions on a diet of oatmeal and peanut butter and with inadquate living—and no bathing—facilities. The children, he said, developed scabs and sores. But when the couple requested eggs for their children, they were accused of being “partial” and “unrevolutionary,” he stated.

At the conclusion of the all-day hearing, Judge Koplin said he would render a verdict after examining the evidence. Meanwhile, he ruled that the Krownapple children are to remain in the custody of their mother.

JOSEPH M. HOPKINS

Where Kids Are

Although rising alcohol abuse among teen-agers has become a national concern, an annual survey of 24,000 leading high school juniors and seniors in the United States indicates that alcohol use among teen-age leaders has dropped significantly. The poll, conducted by the publishers of “Who’s Who Among American High School Students,” revealed that 80 per cent of those surveyed regard alcohol as a dangerous drug. The number who “never” use beer increased from 25 per cent in the 1974 poll to 49 per cent in the latest one. Those who “never” use wine increased from 18 per cent to 46 per cent, and those who “never” drink hard liquor increased from 34 per cent to 61 per cent.

About 85 percent said they have never smoked cigarettes, and 88 per cent said they have never used any drugs, including marijuana.

In a number of other areas, including politics and sexual mores, the poll results show that teen leaders have become more conservative. Seventy per cent said they have never had sexual intercourse, and 56 per cent say they would prefer their spouse to be a virgin when they marry. Most said they would not condemn couples living together without marriage but would not seriously consider such a relationship for themselves.

Nearly 90 per cent expressed belief in God, and about 80 per cent considered themselves members of a religious faith, while 60 per cent said they attend religious services weekly—a drop of 6 per cent since 1974. Nearly half indicated that religion has become more relevant in their lives in recent years and plays a “very significant” role in their personal moral standards and actions.

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