Knocking Some Sense Into Senate Censors : A ‘smart wing’ in the House is crafting a compromise for monitoring the Net.

The Republican House leadership may be about to deprive the Democrats of a cherished argument: that Republicans are in thrall to the religious right and that all the GOP talk of reining in government is just hypocritical cover for policing morals.

The Senate recently passed an amendment to the telecommunications reform bill making it a federal crime to send sexually oriented messages over the Internet. The amendment calls for prison terms of up to two years and fines as high as $100,000 for anyone who knowingly transmits “any obscene communication in any form including any comment . . . or image.” It is clearly aimed not merely at protecting children but at censoring adults. Prosecutions could theoretically target e-mail between husband and wife.

Formulated with help from conservative Christian groups, the Senate amendment is just the sort of provision that Republican “ideologues” are supposedly eager to foist on the American people. But the amendment is not a product of Republican insurgents. Its author is a Democrat best known for attacking foreign investment and helping Amtrak: Sen. James Exon of Nebraska. The Exon amendment is in fact a classic “centrist” measure--a thoughtless attempt to solve a perceived problem by expanding government power to regulate personal choices.

Indeed, it is almost always centrists and often liberals who pander to pro-censorship interest groups. It was not Republican Phil Gramm but Democrat Paul Simon who dragged network executives before Senate hearings attacking TV violence. And at those hearings, it was not a conservative Republican but New Dealer Howard Metzenbaum who threatened to jerk the licenses of broadcasters who didn’t buckle under. Bob Dole, despite his attacks on popular song lyrics, actually voted against the Exon amendment.

The House had no censorship provisions in its telecommunications bill; it dodged the purported smut issue by calling for a study. The radical Republicans in the House leadership have little tolerance for attacks on free speech and new technologies. The Exon amendment is a direct attack on their libertarian-oriented constituents, and is already spawning calls for massive civil disobedience--nude photos on every Worldwide Web site, for instance.

Speaker Newt Gingrich said the amendment “is clearly a violation of free speech and it’s a violation of the right of adults to communicate with each other. I don’t agree with it.”

Gingrich knows that an important Republican constituency, conservative Christians, would dearly love to see something like the Exon amendment become law. But the speaker is technologically savvy enough to know that monitoring every Internet transaction is impossible, making the Exon amendment a prescription for arbitrary and tyrannical enforcement. And he has spent years cultivating a future-oriented, “opportunity society” constituency, one that reflects his own enthusiasm for new technologies and the freedoms they bring. So, Gingrich is vowing to spike the Exon amendment in conference.

A market-oriented and remarkably bipartisan alternative is being crafted in the House. Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) has joined forces with Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden to author a bill that would block federal regulation of on-line services while making it easier for such services to screen out sexual material if that’s what consumers want. (Cox heads the House Republican Policy Committee, which functions as an internal think tank, formulating the party’s policy proposals for legislation.)

The Cox-Wyden bill would protect on-line services from being considered publishers in libel suits merely because they keep out sexual messages. In a recent libel case, a New York state court ruled that Prodigy can be held responsible for everything it carries--rather than being treated like a phone company or bookstore--because it filters out obscene and offensive language. Without something like the Cox-Wyden bill, the market for “family-friendly” on-line services will be wiped out.

Unlike the Exon amendment, the House alternative doesn’t promise a sex-free Net. It doesn’t stifle adult freedoms. It holds parents, not bureaucrats, responsible for guiding their children. But it makes exercising that responsibility easier by removing government obstacles to products and services that help consumers.

By breaking from the centrist mind-set that locates all power and responsibility in Washington, it protects families, freedom and the future. And that could prove a politically potent combination.