Proposition 60 is not about safer sex or worker safety. The initiative’s approach is about power and control, and Californians should vote “no” on Prop 60 on Nov. 8.
For more than a dozen years, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Michael Weinstein has been trying to elbow his way into the politics of the adult entertainment film business, and I have been following and providing news coverage for XBIZ each and every move along the way.
His organization started protesting in front of adult studios for the press brigades, beginning with the LFP offices in June 2004. But, later, the group double-downed its approach by initiating legislative attempts, waging lawsuits and filing complaints with worker safety authorities over condom-less porn productions.
Weinstein was successful, of course, with Measure B in Los Angeles County, after his group spent $1.65 million in efforts to convince a majority of voters in 2012 to approve the condom-requirement ordinance.
But his ideas to overregulate porn with unrealistic protocols for filming sexually explicit content crashed and burned in California’s Legislature through the years, as well.
With his latest attempt, Prop 60, Weinstein has voyaged on to his most misguided pursuit of all, with his organization spending $1.4 million for the required signatures to put the initiative before voters.
It screams peculiarity only because the adult filmmaking industry hasn’t had an on-set HIV transmission in the past 12 years, but coincidentally during that time the industry has beefed up its screening services to ensure a safe and healthy work environment for all.
In addition to providing affordable, high-quality testing with a secure database to ensure performer privacy and to protect producer liability, the industry in the past dozen years has created strict protocols in the event of a positive HIV test.
Now, as Nov. 8 gets closer, Californians are getting a clearer look at what’s motivating such an initiative … because it apparently isn’t solely based on safety.
