[This document came from the Progress & Freedom Foundation, 
http://www.pff.org.]

PFF - 5/3/96

Freedom to Pray and Sin

     The Internet is driving the ACLU and Christian Coalition Together
     
     
     Richard F. O'Donnell
     
     
     Prohibition became law because bootleggers, who stood to gain
     economically from outlawing alcohol, quietly supported the
     "religious" crusade against evil liquor. Today, the forces of state
     control who want the government to regulate Cyberspace quietly
     support the moral crusade against pornography on the Internet. This
     modern day "Bootleggers and Baptists" coalition has driven a stake
     through the traditional civil libertarian constituency and left the
     ACLU crowd completely bewildered.
     
     
     The Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress earlier this year
     and now being challenged in court, criminalizes the transmission and
     posting of indecent material on line. In the year of the Republican
     Congressional Revolution a Democrat (James Exon of Nebraska) was the
     prime sponsor of the censorship act. Opponents were never able to
     label it purely a move by "Newt Gingrich's radical freshmen" because
     so many Democrats supported it (and Gingrich did not). For instance,
     a recent WIRED magazine article entitled "The Rogues Gallery" that
     profiled "the legislators who helped make government censorship a
     reality on the Internet" didn't profile even one Republican.
     
     
     Liberal legislators and President Clinton, who normally have few
     problems with the ACLU and abhor the "radical Christian right," went
     right along with them in attempt to increase state control. How is
     it legislators who voted against efforts to ban flag burning on the
     grounds of free speech suddenly voted to ban dirty pictures?
     
     
     Simply put, the Democrats saw in the censorship act a way to assert
     government regulation of the Internet, the first step in letting
     Washington bureaucrats regulate Cyberspace in the "public interest."
     These liberal paternalists intuitively favor state control in the
     mode of Senator Bob Kerry, who thinks that, because the FCC
     regulates telephone and television transmission, it is a natural
     extension of its powers to regulate the Internet. These are members
     of an elite who believe that government is in a better position than
     parents to determine the programming content of television networks
     or in a better position than the market and to determine the
     standards for emerging technology.
     
     
     Defenders of free speech lost their battle over the censorship act
     because, when their traditional Democratic allies abandoned them,
     they were unable to get over their distaste for moralism and
     recognize their new natural allies. The key to victory for civil
     libertarians is understanding that moralists (e.g. "the Christian
     right") are not a unified, monolithic front.
     
     
     There is a small group of statist moralists who are seeking
     government power in order to impose their views on the rest of
     America. They may pose a threat to free speech. Yet most "Christian
     activists" are not interested in imposing anything on others.
     Instead, they are actively opposing a government that is abridging
     their rights to freedom of faith. Statist moralists advocate not
     just a silent moment in school but a school led prayer. Anti-statist
     moralists just want schools to stop distributing condoms because it
     undermines the lessons they are trying to teach their children about
     abstinence until marriage.
     
     
     The strategic error of civil libertarians in the fight over the
     censorship act was to lump together the statist moralists and the
     anti-statist moralists. The latter are natural allies of the free
     speechers (for the same reason the Christian Coalition and
     Libertarians call the Republican party home). The ACLU crowd was
     unable to create a free speech alliance with Christians because they
     failed to acknowledge that attempts to limit the availability of
     pornography is very American.
     
     
     The legacy of the Puritans remains strong in our nation. Throughout
     our history Americans have been ready to demand conformity and to
     impose through law moral standards (recall abolition - for which
     America went to war). Foes of the Internet censorship lost their
     battle by labeling their opponents "unAmerican." Steve Guest, a
     network consultant who is party to a class action suit against
     attempts to shut down on-line adult sites, summed up the civil
     libertarian attitude when he said such actions were "violating the
     basic principles on which this country was founded."
     
     
     Calling attempts to regulate pornography "unAmerican" does not sway
     many people - especially Congressmen. Moral crusades against sinful
     material are as quintessentially American as individual liberty.
     Civil libertarians need to acknowledge the natural place of moralism
     in American life. Otherwise, they blind themselves from recognizing
     their true enemy. Freedom isn't threatened by moralism - we are free
     precisely because we are moral beings. Freedom is threatened by the
     advocates of state control.
     
     
     Civil libertarians need to reach out to anti-statist moralists and
     show them that it is no better to let the government in our
     computers than our churches. The way to fight pornography is on
     individual computer screens, with technology that empowers parents
     to determine what their children see - not what some invisible
     bureaucrat or court decides is appropriate.