Kingdom of Heavin

Addie Dietrich loved going to her Waldo-area Curves gym. She joined in August 2002 and had grown attached to its personable staff and efficient circuit-training regimen. But 2 months ago, a phone call from a friend made her wonder whether she had been working out or selling out.

Curves encourages women to feel comfortable with their bodies. Its brochures picture normal-sized, middle-aged women. They also picture overweight women without placing them in a degrading “before” box.

Curves is the largest fitness franchise in the world. There are approximately 7,075 Curves fitness and weight-loss centers in the United States, including 40 in Kansas City, and a total of 8,043 worldwide. Last year franchise owners reaped $760 million in membership fees, and the corporation earned $100 million from the sale of franchises, product royalties and monthly franchise fees.

The clubs are exclusively for women, but despite the cutesy cursive logo on the awnings above their storefronts, these aren’t Barbie dream gyms with bubble baths and tasseled exercise bicycles. Most Curves members don’t want a health club with frills. Many have tried fancier facilities, only to be alienated because the wall-to-wall mirrors made them feel like funhouse freaks next to their tanned and toned neighbors, or because they grew tired of waiting in line while buff athletes ran mini-marathons on treadmills, or because they hated the singles-barbell atmosphere.

At Curves, there are no lockers, showers or mirrors. There are few, if any, treadmills. Instead, there’s a circle of about a dozen easy-to-operate hydraulic machines. Every 30 seconds, an automated voice prompts members to move to the next station, where they either run in place on an elevated rubber mat to boost their heart rates or work a different muscle group. Members can enter the circle at any point, eliminating the need to wait at any station.

Circuit-training workouts emphasize camaraderie, and members of the circle often bond, feeling the burn together.

But now some members are steaming about a different issue. Addie Dietrich found out about it when her friend called to tell her that Curves cofounder Gary Heavin is a born-again Christian who funnels millions of dollars in company profits to radical anti-abortion organizations. Behind the fitness center’s self-empowering, safe-house façade was just another male millionaire from Texas with a religious take on reproductive rights.

Dietrich searched the Internet, where she found conflicting information. Eventually, though, it became clear that Heavin is a proud pro-lifer who makes charitable contributions based on his religious beliefs. The next day, Dietrich canceled her automatic monthly payments to the gym.

“As a person who supports women’s choice and sexuality education practices, I couldn’t in good conscience go over there and put my money into an organization that subverted those issues,” Dietrich says.

Another Waldo Curves member, Nancy Clark, continued her workout program as she mulled over the new information, but she found it increasingly difficult to remain focused on fitness.

Ultimately, Clark asked for a refund for the remainder of her contract. “With its right-wing fundamentalist approach to life, Curves is taking away women’s rights as it publicly declares the opposite,” Clark wrote in a June 14 letter to Waldo franchise owner Dana Willett. “If one function of Curves is to raise money for anti-women’s rights causes, but women are not informed of that function before they join Curves, that is deceit,” she added.

Only a small percentage of local Curves members have cancelled their memberships. But the controversy that caused them to do so is a larger story, one that involves the dangers of half-cocked journalism, the viral speed of Internet accusations and the power of politically correct spending habits.

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Curves is closed on Sundays, keeping the Sabbath day holy. But there aren’t religious pamphlets on the wall or crucifixes looming above the crossbars. In retrospect, though, Dietrich and Clark recall hints of Curves’ Christian connection, such as a 2-hour Saturday-morning inspirational workout with a Christian-music soundtrack. “I didn’t know if it was a franchisee preference or something promoted by the whole corporation,” Dietrich says. “I just didn’t go.”

Curves International spokeswoman Becky Frusher tells the Pitch that franchise owners aren’t asked about their political or religious views. But at Club Camp, the mandatory weeklong training session for new franchise owners, Heavin openly discusses his views.

He hasn’t been secretive about his beliefs in interviews, either.

“So many of our women had given up on exercise and had given themselves over to obesity and chronic disease, but God has allowed us to create a haven for them so they can get control of their lives,” he told Today’s Pentecostal Evangel.

“There’s nothing healthy about abortion,” he told Today’s Christian.

For Curves members who don’t subscribe to religious publications, two San Francisco Chronicle columns provided an introduction to Heavin’s views.

On March 29, Ruth Rosen wrote that Heavin had given at least $5 million of his profits “to some of the most militant anti-abortion groups in the country.” This allegation stirred discussion, and Heavin took notice.

“We get a lot of heat because we’re so expressive of our faith, and we encourage our faith,” Heavin told The San Jose Mercury News on April 15.

Jon Carroll weighed in a few days later, writing in his own Chronicle column: “Heavin … is a heavy contributor to several organizations allied with Operation Save America…. In an article in Christianity Today, Heavin expressed pride in his involvement with anti-choice groups, to which he donates 10 percent of Curves’ profits. You may do with this information what you will.”

Operation Save America, the successor to Operation Rescue, has a history of barricading the doors of abortion providers and using bullhorns and bloody-fetus posters to harass women who enter reproductive clinics. On its Web site, Operation Save America posts this bold-faced text above articles related to the Curves controversy: “Can someone please tell me what is so radical about actually going to the abortion mill and interceding on behalf of the children by using God’s word? The only violence that you will find in us is the violence that takes place in the heart when the Word of God gets into it.”

Many readers posted Carroll’s column on their Web sites and discussion boards. The accusations spread so quickly that Snopes.com, an online debunker of urban legends, provided a reference page.

Heavin responded in an April 30 Curves International press release. “Neither Curves International, nor my wife, nor I gave money to Operation Save America or any other radical pro-life group,” he announced.

In mid-May, the Chronicle printed a six-paragraph correction of Rosen’s and Carroll’s pieces. In July, Rosen left the paper, reportedly because of issues related to her Curves column.

One problem was that Carroll had relied on a source’s erroneous reporting. The Today’s Christian piece asserts that Heavin “donates 10 percent of Curves’ profits.” However, last year Heavin gave a total equal to 10 percent of Curves’ profits — from his own salary, not from Curves’ profits.

Also, Carroll’s wording mistakenly suggests that the full 10 percent goes to anti-abortion groups, though the money goes to a wide range of charitable causes, including college scholarships, food programs, community grants and medical research.

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Heavin contributed to the confusion with a February guest editorial in The Waco Tribune-Herald. “My wife and I founded the Women’s Health Collaborative Project with a 5-year, $5 million grant to assist women with health care here in Waco. The Family Practice Center, Care Net Pregnancy Center and the McLennan County Collective Abstinence Project are wonderful organizations that provide a variety of services to women in need, including free or nominal-cost health care. Women can receive the care they need without compromising their values at an abortion mill.”

The Women’s Health Collaborative Project lumps three distinct organizations with very different relationships to abortion under one umbrella.

Care Net ($1 million total donation) runs pregnancy crisis centers that discourage abortion and encourage adoption. The Family Practice Center of McLennan County ($3.75 million) provides health-care services to central Texas residents, many of whom are uninsured; the Catholic-run center has a referral relationship with Planned Parenthood. And the McLennan County Collaborative Abstinence Project ($1.25 million) encourages teens to refrain from premarital sex.

In a May 7 letter to members, Curves International again clarified its position: “Curves International does not donate any Curves profits to charities. Be assured that your money is not going toward radical pro-life or anti-abortion groups.”

These revelations and retractions have done little to sway the local members who quit Curves.

“It doesn’t change my mind at all,” Clark says. “It’s the most outrageous thing, an organization exclusively for women raising money to take away women’s rights.”

Franchise owners point out that leaving Curves only hurts the people responsible for the individual branches — 90 percent of them women, many of whom are first-time entrepreneurs lured by a low start-up cost. Franchise owners are bound by contract to pay monthly dues to Heavin, up to $400 a month, even if their members depart. Also, the owners have emphasized that Heavin’s views are not necessarily their own.

Along with a refund check, Clark received a letter from Waldo franchise owner Willett. “I was distressed to receive your letter recently,” Willett wrote, “not because I argue with your sentiments, but because you have chosen to accept a large amount of incorrect information as fact.” (Willett did not return phone calls from the Pitch.)

Sensitive to the plight of franchise owners, some pro-choice Curves members have adopted a more moderate approach. Teresa, a San Francisco resident who asked that her last name not be used, launched the Web site Curvers for Choice after reading Rosen’s article.

“I didn’t want to quit or boycott,” she says. “I wanted to do something positive.”

For example, she does some math that minimizes the importance of any Curves member’s monthly fee. Of this payment ($29 to $49, depending on the location), only a small percentage goes to Curves headquarters, and only a small percentage of that goes to Heavin as a salary, and only a small percentage of that is earmarked for any particular charity, Teresa contends.

She also suggests that, instead of boycotting, members pledge money to pro-choice groups and inform Heavin of those donations. Curves members have contributed more than $3,000 to Planned Parenthood of Central Texas. In response, Heavin told Women’s eNews, “I respect freedom of speech and I expect it in return.”

For her part, Dietrich says, “I have no objection to anyone supporting whatever kinds of charities they want to support. It’s none of my business what Gary Heavin does with his money. But it is my business what I do with my money.”

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Dietrich found a temporary solution thanks to a recent promotion Curves conducted using Nabisco products. Clipping coupons that offered three free workouts for each three Nabisco proofs of purchase, Dietrich briefly resumed her workouts.

“As long as I’m not giving any more money to them,” she says.