WASHINGTON (BP)–The U.S. House of Representatives adopted Oct. 7 a bill to protect children from pornography on the Internet’s World Wide Web despite opposition from The Disney Company and others, according to a published report.
The House passed the Child Online Protection Act by voice vote. The Senate passed in July its version of the measure as part of the funding bill for the departments of Commerce, Justice and State.
The legislation seeks to block children under 17 from accessing pornography on the Web by forcing commercial distributors to remove free images and to require a credit card, personal identification number or adult access code in order to view sexually explicit material. It is common practice on the Web for pornography distributors to provide teaser images for free before requiring a credit card to see others.
In other action Oct. 7, the Senate adopted by a 98-1 vote an amendment with a similar intent to a bill prohibiting state and local taxes on Internet access. The amendment, introduced by Sen. Dan Coats, R.-Ind., exempts from the two-year moratorium on taxes any commercial Web site that does not restrict access to pornography by children.
Until the House action Oct. 7, it appeared the Child Online Protection Act might not gain passage before Congress closed its session. Lobbyists from Disney, the Motion Picture Association of America, America Online and Microsoft worked against its passage, according to an Oct. 7 report in The Washington Times. Citing congressional sources, The Times reported Disney feared the bill would prevent it from marketing some of its movies on-line. Disney and others stalled the legislation the week before through meetings with House members, an aide in Coats office told The Times.
Disney, which built its family friendly reputation through decades of classic, animated movies, distributes R-rated movies through some of its subsidiaries, including Miramax Films, Hollywood Pictures and Touchstone Pictures.
According to The Times, Disney said in a statement it “has been working with members of Congress to improve the language” of the bill, adding the company “is extremely concerned that children be protected from exposure to inappropriate content on the Internet.” A Baptist Press call to Disney requesting a copy of the statement was not returned before deadline.
“This amounts to a tacit admission by Disney that some of what the company markets could be considered pornography by this measure and harmful to minors,” said Tim Wildmon, vice president of the America Family Association, in a written statement. “If Disney were not making such films and marketing them to minors, they wouldn’t be worried about this bill.
“By opposing this bill, Disney demonstrates that it is insincere when it says it cares about families and children.”
Because of what it described as Disney’s increasingly anti-family and anti-Christian products and policies, the Southern Baptist Convention voted at its 1997 meeting to encourage the members of its churches to boycott Disney. Other participants in the boycott initiated by AFA in 1995 are the Assemblies of God, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and other religious and pro-family organizations. In addition to its involvement in films of questionable moral value, other policies cited for the boycott include Disney’s provision of health benefits for the partners of its homosexual employees and the “gay days” held at Disney theme parks.
A Southern Baptist public policy specialist commended Congress “for passing this legislation, which should do much to protect children from pornography on the Internet.”
“At the same time,” said Will Dodson of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, “I cannot help but feel that we have a very, very long way to go in dealing with the broader problem of widespread availability of pornographic material. I believe that pornography in general poses one of the chief threats to the soul of America. While I am grateful for this particular piece of legislation, I feel compelled to say that we must multiply our efforts to turn back the tide of the acceptability of pornography in our society.”
The Child Online Protection Act was a new approach to Internet pornography after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year the Communications Decency Act was unconstitutional. The CDA, which Coats and now-retired Sen. James Exon, D.-Neb., had co-authored, prohibited the distribution through on-line computer services of “obscene or indecent” material to any person under 18. It also banned the depiction or description of “sexual or excretory activities or organs” that is “patently offensive,” according to community standards.
The Supreme Court, however, struck down the CDA, saying its ban violated “the First Amendment right of adults to make and obtain this speech.” The CDA regulated a variety of zones on the Internet, including news groups, chat rooms, e-mail and the World Wide Web, which the high court found too expansive. The court also drew distinctions between commercial and noncommercial distributors.
Although he disagreed with the court’s ruling, Coats changed his strategy by attempting to fashion his new bill to alleviate the justices’ concerns. He did so largely by targeting only commercial distributors on the Web. The bill also uses the standard of material “harmful to minors” rather than the one used in the CDA.
After the House vote, Coats called it in a written statement a “victory for parents, a victory for kids and a victory for common sense.”
Rep. Mike Oxley, R.-Ohio, chief House sponsor, said in his floor speech more than 60,000 Web sites featuring sexually explicit material are available to children.
“While the Internet is a tool which can be used to educate and entertain our children, it can also be a window to the dark world of pornography,” Oxley said, according to the text of his floor statement. Oxley said his bill “is nothing less than an attempt to protect childhood.”
