Politics, Policies and Positions
The Family Research Council supports the wide availability of a vaccine for human papilloma virus (HPV, a virus that causes cervical cancer), though it opposes an effort to make this mandatory for school attendance. Its position is that it would infringe upon rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children, without a sufficient public health justification, as HPV is not transmitted through casual contact.
It supports a federal conscience clause protecting the right of medical workers to withhold from certain practices, such as abortion or dispensation of contraception, that it finds morally objectionable. It also supports an increase in pro-abstinence sex education, intelligent design as an alternative to evolution (and the ID movement's "Teach the Controversy" campaign), tighter regulation of pornography (especially internet pornography), and "obscene, indecent, or profane programing" on broadcast and cable television. It actively opposed the introduction of a .xxx domain name on the grounds that it would legitimize pornography, and lobbied for an increase in indecency fines from the Federal Communications Commission. It also believes that hotel pornography may be prosecutable under federal and state obscenity laws. It opposes the expansion of civil rights laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity as illegal bases for discrimination.
The Family Research Council supports lower taxes and simplifying the tax code, increasing the child tax credit, and school prayer. FRC also supports the requirement of a one-year waiting period before a married couple with children can legally get a divorce so that they can receive marital counseling, unless the marriage involves domestic violence. Permanently eliminating the marriage penalty and estate taxes are also issues FRC supports.
The Family Research Council opposes legalized abortion, stem-cell research which involves the destruction of human embryos and funding thereof (instead advocating research using adult stem cells), legal recognition of same-sex domestic partnerships in the form of marriage or civil unions, and all forms of gambling because it believes it negatively affects one's family, personal, and professional life. The Family Research Council has questioned the idea that humans are mainly or completely responsible for global warming, and has opposed other evangelicals who have affirmed the validity of global warming.
Read more about this topic: Family Research Council
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