Congress will soon consider an “American Values Agenda.” It’s less about passing legislation than it is about raising campaign issues for the fall elections.
Here are some parts of the agenda, with my comments on each:
• Restrictions on abortion rights – If we are to restrict abortion rights, we should guarantee that each of those unwilling mothers has free government-provided prenatal care and that each of those unwanted children has free, government-sponsored pediatric care, and if we’re to require women seeking abortions be informed the procedure “will cause the unborn child pain,” shouldn’t we require that the patient hear both sides of the argument?
• Preservation of gun rights – If we need to fulfill the promise of the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms, we should also fulfill the promise of the other clause of the amendment that a militia be regulated. That means requiring firearm safety training for gun buyers and for anyone applying for a concealed-weapons permit. We’ll hear arguments that police and law-abiding citizens will follow such rule, but that criminals will not. That means that most people will follow the rules. Police will have to deal with those who don’t.
• Protection of religious expression in public places – Freedom from established religion should be one our strongest American values.
• A prohibition on human cloning – Because I have an illness that may someday be cured by research on cloned human stem cells, I have come to believe that the creation and destruction of human embryos is a small price to pay for making our lives more comfortable.
• Votes on several popular tax cuts – Yes; we all want lower taxes, but let’s find a way to reduce government expenditures. That way we can reach a more important American value: Not leaving our children with a massive debt.
• Stripping the Supreme Court and other federal courts of jurisdiction over cases challenging the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance – Yes, some of the suits against the pledge have seemed silly, but Congress should not react by reducing the jurisdiction of the Courts. Yes, the ninth circuit Court of Appeals held that requiring the pledge to be said in school violated the constitution. But the U.S., Supreme Court overturned the decision. The courts have long been protectors of minority rights. We should not reduce their jurisdiction just because a few of their decisions are unpopular.
• Blocking payment of attorney fees in challenges to the display of the Ten Commandments in public areas and other, similar church-state lawsuits – This would be a back-door way of eliminating access to the courts. Some have had merit. Last year, the Supreme Court held one public display to be constitutional and another to be unconstitutional. It’s a battle that we’ll be fighting for generations.
Evan Smith is The Enterprise Forum editor.
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