Dr. Laura and the American Library Association are not exactly allies, but that was before they found themselves agreeing - and working together - on a compromise to allow communities to decide for themselves how to shield children from online porn.
Schlessinger and the ALA are lining up in support of a bill by Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum, which isn't likely to get action until next year. This bill was thought to have a hard ride against a tougher measure from Arizona Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain, but Schlessinger and the ALA's support may get the Santorum bill a closer hearing, if not exactly on the faster track.
Santorum tells the Toledo Blade it was hearing from Schlessinger which spurred him on in the first place. "She's been on a crusade about this," the Pennsylvania Republican says.
The key difference between the Santorum and McCain bills, says the Blade, is that the McCain bill would require schools and libraries receiving discounts for access to put "filters" on computers with Internet access. The Santorum bill would communities decide how to protect children, and be forced to install filtering only if it fails to act.
The House has agreed to a compromise version of the McCain bill and has attached it to pending juvenile justice legislation. But unless an impasse over new gun show restrictions, that legislation isn't likely to pass this year.
However, children's access to online porn will come up again early next year, particularly with McCain promising to make the issue a critical part of his bid for the GOP Presidential nomination.
But President Clinton's position on the McCain bill isn't clear, the Blade says. And even if he signs such a bill, opposition would try to blow it out of the water in court at once. The ALA has already said it would sue post haste if any measure puts "unconstitutional requirements" on libraries.
Santorum says whatever approach is used really should be a community decision.
"Filtering, frankly, just won't work that well," he says. "The problem is not just pornographic sites, but also chat rooms. There are other dangers on the besides pornographic sites."
The ALA isn't quite as enthusiastic as Schlessinger about the Santorum bill, though, endorsing it somewhat reluctantly. "It is a far more reasonable approach, particularly as an alternative to other, more dramatic, filtering legislation," Claudette Tennant, the association's assistant director for government relations, tells the Blade.
The Santorum bill doesn't just have Schlessinger and the ALA on its side, though. Major education groups like the National Education Association backed the bill. But the American Civil Liberties Union continues its firm opposition to any legislation that approves Internet filtering.
"The problem is, someone has got to make the decision as to what to filter out," says ACLU legislative counsel Marv Johnson. "Even the American Family Association (a conservative, religious media and entertainment watchdog group) has found itself on the other end, filtered out as a site that promoted intolerance. Over and above that, however, it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to teach kids and adults to use the Internet in a discriminating way by saying that they aren't allowed to see certain things. It's just like driver's ed for the highway. You have to learn how to use it."
