The conference also featured a small exhibit area, where literature and other materials were distributed. A table run by Human Life International, an ultra-conservative Catholic group, passed out a pamphlet equating the use of contraceptives with wife beating. The pamphlet, Contraception and Common Sense by Dr. Les Hemingway, calls doctors who prescribe contraceptives muddle-headed and nincompoops. It goes on to assert, No one would punch his wife in the teeth and claim that he was making love. In fact, there is no essential difference between contraception and more obvious forms of violence.
Contraception is a subtle but effective form of domestic violence.
It batters love instead of building it up, which is why divorce rates rise as contraception spreads. On Friday morning before the Christian Coalition conference got under way, Equal Partners in Faith, a Washington-based group that works to promote equality between the sexes and an appreciation for diversity, held a forum at the same hotel to respond to the Coalition s claim that women agree with the Religious Right on political issues. We actively oppose the manipulation of religion to exclude or oppress people, said the Rev. Meg Riley, a Unitarian Universalist minister and member of the Americans United National Advisory Council, who co-chairs Equal Partners in Faith. Another speaker, Rabbi Bonnie Margulis of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, criticized the Religious Right for claiming to speak for all people of faith. No one religious viewpoint should prevail in this diverse country of ours.