The Contract With the American Family represents one of the few times in our nation's history when the agenda of Congress has been controlled by a religious organization. Without the Christian Coalition's support, the Republican revolution that swept Congress would very likely have not have been nearly so decisive. In exchange for the election, the Republicans have committed themselves to the passage of the Contract with the American Family. This Contract has a couple of good ideas, but it also calls for heavy Internet censorship, and the religious equality amendment. Its also got some stuff against a UN intiative called the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Information on all of it is on this page, except for REA, which merits its own page. Parts in bold are contract text; the rest is mine. The full text of the contract can be found here.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP:

1. Enactment of legislation to protect children from being exposed to pornography on the Internet. Pornography, both soft core and hard core, is freely available on the Internet to virtually anyone with a home computer. Several magazines post pornographic images that can be viewed by anyone, including children, for free. There are also numerous sites on the Internet where hard core pornography depicting a variety of explicit sexual acts, even rape scenes and bestiality, are available free and can be accessed with a few clicks of a computer button. Christian Coalition urges Congress to enact legislation to protect children from being exposed to pornography on the Internet. Criminal law should be amended to prohibit distribution of, or making available, any pornography, soft core or hard, to children, and to prohibit distribution of obscene hard core pornography to adults.

There are already plenty of low-cost or free software blocking programs that can block a child's access to pornography. The industry has come up with many ways of regulating itself, making such legislation unnecessary. The idea of prohibiting the distribution of hard-core pornography that is made and distributed by consenting adults is almost laughable in its unconstitutionality.

UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD:

Christian Coalition opposes the treaty because it interferes with the parent-child relationship, threatens the sovereignty of U.S. law, and elevates as "rights" such dubious provisions as access to television and mass media. The following are some of the examples of the absolute rights given to children through this treaty:

"No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence - The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

"The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice."

With respect to the right of the child to freedom of association or peaceful assembly, "[n]o restrictions may be placed on the exercise of these rights other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

They don't like this one because they claim that it will allow children to have access to any sort of media, including media which is not age appropriate. However, if one reads the actual text of the treaty (the above are only the examples the Christian Coalition uses to prove their point) one can see that the Chrisitan Coalition's second example is onyl half the story. After talking about freedom of expression, the treaty goes on to say that "The exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary." In other words, your kids aren't going to get the right to get all sorts of pornography. The freedom of expression article to the treaty is clearly subordinate to the laws of the country in question, unlike what the Caolition would have you believe. In fact, there are numerous other areas in the treaty which repeat this fact. The Coalition claims that the treaty "threatens the sovereignty of U.S. law,"a claim which is wholly unsubstantiated.

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