Family Advocates: COPA Ruling a Boon for Pornographers, a Bane for Families
by Bill Fancher and Jody Brown
June 30, 2004
(AgapePress) - Pro-family leaders continue to condemn Tuesday's Supreme Court decision to keep the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) from being implemented. The law, passed by Congress and signed into law during the Clinton Administration, was designed to shield children from commercial pornographic websites.In a 5-4 decision, the nation's highest court sided with the American Civil Liberties Union's argument that filtering software was a less restrictive alternative to the COPA requirements. The law would have required Internet users attempting to view websites with "adult" content to register using age-related access codes. (See Earlier Article)
Following the ruling, an official with the Department of Justice made the following public statement. "Our society has reached a broad consensus that child obscenity is harmful to our youngest generation and must be supported," Mark Corallo, director of public affairs for the DOJ, said. "Congress has repeatedly attempted to address this serious need, and the [Supreme] Court yet again opposed these common-sense measures to protect America's Children."
Pro-family advocates could not agree more. Pat Trueman with the Washington-based Family Research Council contends the high court exceeded its authority. "This kind of action by the Supreme Court is nothing less than judicial tyranny," Trueman says. "No one gave the Supreme Court the right or duty to protect our children. Congress has that right, and they've passed this law in two different versions."
The Supreme Court has now negated both of those versions. The court's swing vote in Tuesday's decision was conservative associate justice Clarence Thomas, which was a shock to many conservatives.
A spokesman for Focus on the Family echoes Trueman's comments regarding the Supreme Court justices. Daniel Weiss, the ministry's family media and sexuality analyst, calls the court's "supposed concern" for the nation's children "little more than a thin veneer masking dramatic judicial activism."
"This decision leads one to believe that despite its assurances to the contrary, the Court has no real interest in allowing Congress to protect children online," Weiss says. "This decision, already delayed five years, is a serious blow to the health and safety of our nation's children."
Weiss says that in his opinion, the ruling is just another example of "an activist Court putting the profits of pornographers ahead of the safety of children under the guise of 'protecting free speech.'"
Andrea Lafferty, executive director of Traditional Values Coalition, chimes in, saying the Supreme Court "has decided to provide more protection for the purveyors of online smut" than for America's children. And it is "absolute nonsense," she says, to believe that, as stated by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy in writing for the majority, "...there is a potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill upon protected speech" if COPA is enforced.
"[T]he pornographers have won again," Lafferty says in a press release, "and children will continue to be victimized by online sexual predators. It is clear we cannot expect the U.S. Supreme Court to protect our children from the dangers of pornographers. Parents should continue to be vigilant in porn-proofing their home computers and TVs with filtered Internet services, blocking software, and parenting controls."
Desire for Purity, Righteousness
Steve Ensley is president of American Family Online (AFO), a Christian-based filtered Internet service provider. In a letter to subscribers, Ensley pulls no punches when he describes the COPA ruling as "another mark of evil in our culture that puts sin ahead of our children."
"We are now a country as guilty as the pagan Baal worshippers and Aztec worshippers who sacrificed children to appease their gods," the AFO head says. "[This decision] confirms that the hope for our country, our culture, and most importantly, our families, does not rest in government or law. [It] proves once again that we can only depend on God."
Ensley, who admits going through a gamut of emotions since hearing of the high court's ruling -- from anger, to disbelief, to frustration -- says the bottom line is whether people want to honor Christ and obey His will.
"It really comes down to our own personal relationship with God and our own desire for purity and righteousness," he says. "Now, more than ever, we must make personal decisions to do what is right, to honor God with our behaviors and to care about something."
Ensley encourage parents to direct that caring toward their family's moral and spiritual health. He says if parents view or tolerate the viewing of what he describes as "destructive material," there is no hope for families at all.
