Education: Parents should have the right to choose the best schools for their children; schools should teach right from wrong; advocate $1,000 tuition credit. Backs parents’ right to educate children at home.
Homosexual Rights: Oppose efforts to include sexual preference as a protected minority under civil rights laws. Oppose recognition of same-sex marriages or laws allowing such couple to adopt children or provide foster care. Support continued ban on homosexuals in the military.
AIDS: AIDS should be treated like any other communicable or sexually transmitted disease, while at the same time preserving patient confidentiality. Oppose distribution of condoms or clean needles for drug users. Encourage prevention through education that stresses marital fidelity, abstinence and a drug-free lifestyle.
Abortion: Unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life. Reaffirm support for a human life amendment to the Constitution. Oppose public funding of abortion. Encourage abstinence education instead of school-based programs offering birth-control devices. Increase adoptions through tax credits, insurance and legal reforms. Appoint judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of human life.
Arts Funding: Oppose use of federal funds for obscenity and blasphemy masquerading as art. Accuses the entertainment industry, academics and Democrats of waging guerilla war against American values. Calls for a crusade against pornography.
Welfare: Regards current welfare system as anti-work and anti-marriage. it taxes families to subsidize illegitimacy. Reform should require work from those able in return for public assistance; make welfare families with children send them to school.
Civil Rights: Support various enforcement of statutes to prevent illegal discrimination on account of sex, race, creed, or national origin. We reject efforts to replace equal rights with quotas or other preferential treatment.
Deficit: At the heart of the Democrats’ corruption of Congress is a fraudulent budget process. The lords of the Capitol still play the old shell game. Support a balanced budget, including a balanced-budget constitutional amendment. Reduce federal spending with a line-item veto.
Religion and Public Life: We believe in traditional family values, and in the Judeo-Christian heritage that informs our culture. America must remain neutral toward particular religions, but we must not remain neutral toward religion itself or the values religion supports. Allow voluntary prayer at community events such as commencement, and the right of students to engage in voluntary prayer in schools. Advocate the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance as a reminder of the principles that sustain us as one nation under God.
Family: Families built on solid, spiritual foundations are central to our party’s inspiration. Trust parents and believe they, not courts and lawyers, know what is best for their children. The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility and character. Oppose parental-leave legislation in favor of agreements worked out between workers an employers. Increase income tax exemptions for dependents.
Health Care: Health care choices should remain in the hands of people, not government bureaucrats. Offset insurance costs with tax credits and deductions. Require insurers to cover preexistent conditions. Make premiums fully deductible for the self-employed. Cap malpractice claims.
Policy: Pursue security policies in partnership with other nations through the United Nations. Defends decision to grand most-favored nation trade status to China based on support for democratic reform. Reduce troop strength in Europe while maintaining military commitment and continue military ties with Israel while pursuing negotiated peace.
Environment: Progress must continue in tandem with economic growth. Crippling an industry is no solution. Bankrupt facilities only worsen environmental solutions.
Firearms: Defend the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Opposes gun control. Calls for stiff mandatory sentences for those who use firearms in a crime.
Crime: Change evidence rules that hamper prosecutions. change habeas corpus law to shorten the appeals process. Increase drug education in schools. Strengthen border patrol with necessary tools, technologies and structures.
Taxes: The only safeguard between taxpayers and Democrat tax increases is the use of the presidential veto and Republican votes in the Congress to sustain it. The tax increases of 1990 should ultimately be repealed.
Economy: Repeal recessionary tax increases enacted under the 1990 budged agreement and reduce the capital gains tax rate to 15 percent. Create federal enterprise zones and make permanent tax credits for research and development. Decrease government regulation. Increase home ownership through a $5,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers and other programs.
