This man wants to be California’s Porn Czar.
AIDS hysteria has brought about quite a lot of bad policy proposals over the years. And in California, it has led directly to two truly terrible ballot propositions. In 1986, political nutbag and conspiracy theorist extrordiaire Lyndon LaRouche put Proposition 64 on the ballot which, if passed, would have effectively forced anyone who was HIV-positive out of their homes, jobs and schools and into a quarantine. That cockeyed proposal was soundly defeated, 29% to 71%.
This November, there will be another cockeyed proposal on California’s ballot. Prop 60 is just as nonsensical as Prop 64, and it also feeds on the same kinds of hysteria, demonization and stigma that gave life to the earlier proposal. Worse, it’s being pushed by a man who calls himself an AIDS activist: Michael Weinstein who has deployed the same kinds of stereotypes of irresponsible HIV-infected monsters being turned lose on innocent Americans that LaRouche has. He has campaigned against the CDC’s approval of antiretroviral medications as Pre-Exposure Prophylactics (PrEP), he has vilified people who use PrEP to protect themselves, he has portrayed PrEP as nothing but a “party drug, and his AIDS Healthcare has filed a nonsense complaint against Gilead saying it is guilty of promoting Truvada for “off label use” in an effort to get Gilead to cease funding competing community and AIDS groups. He has even to support the National Health Service’s policy of not providing PrEP to anyone in Britain.
His latest move isn’t PrEP related though, although he does try to dress it up as some kind of a backhanded HIV-prevention proposal. If Prop 60 becomes law, anyone who produces, sells, or profits from adult films, including most performers who do all of that with do-it-yourself internet platforms, will be subject to lawsuits and fines if a condom isn’t visible. Condom use during the filming of porn has been required in California since 1993 by the California Department of Industrial Relations, which base their actions on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s 1993 Bloodborne Pathogen’s Standard. Weinstein’s proposal requires that the condom use be a visible portrayal of Weinstein’s only approved HIV-prevention measure, damn the science surrounding Prep. He also makes every viewer a vigilante to ensure that his HIV-prevention measure is always the one being portrayed.
In the era of PrEP, which has a demonstrated 99% effectiveness in blocking HIV transmission, this proposal looks like something from another era. If only it were just that. Eric Paul Leue at HIVPlus sees Weinstein’s latest proposal as something that is far more dangerous:
As an outspoken member of the LGBTQ community and an HIV activist, I see something frightening in Prop. 60. Imagine stalkers, overzealous fans, angry family members, and LGBTQ hate groups being able to obtain legal names and home addresses of people who are open about their sexuality and gender identity. Performers already face daily privacy invasions, harassment, and discrimination — a law giving a digital mob incentives to patrol sexual behavior should raise flags with all LGBTQ people everywhere.
…Unfortunately, we’re seeing these forces rise again in relation to adult performers. Weinstein has called the adult performers “a public health crisis” and stoked fears that they are bringing sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, into the larger population. There’s no evidence to support that — in fact, adult performers are possibly the most regularly tested population on earth, and there hasn’t been an on-set HIV transmission in the regulated adult industry since 2004. But why should AHF let facts get in the way
Rather than address performer concerns or develop legislation that performers and groups like the performer advocacy organization could support, Weinstein has repeatedly attacked and dismissed them. Weinstein has filed complaints through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration against performers who have spoken out against him, and claimed repeatedly that only his organization — not the performers themselves — speaks for performers. He’s even gone so far as to falsely list a performers’ organization as a supporter of the proposition in an official voters’ guide. (The organization complained, and Weinstein was forced to withdraw the listing.)
Groups opposing Prop 60 include Equality California, AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the Transgender Law Center, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and both the California Democratic and Republican parties. Take those last two as a hint. When you can get both political parties to agree something is bad, it’s bad. How bad is it? The Mercury News found that the proposition’s text sets Weinstein up personally as the state’s porn czar:
Consider Section 10. The second sentence reads: “The People of the State of California, by enacting this Act, hereby declare the proponent of this Act (meaning Weinstein, himself) has a direct and personal stake in defending this Act from constitutional or statutory challenges to the Act’s validity.”
It gets worse.
The third sentence reads: “In the event the Attorney General fails to defend this Act, or the Attorney General fails to appeal an adverse judgment against the constitutionality or statutory permissibly of this Act, in whole or in part, in any court, the Act’s proponent (again, Weinstein, himself) shall be entitled to assert his direct and personal stake by defending the Act’s validity in any court …”
Weinstein is setting himself up as the state’s porn czar, apparently for life. He could only be ousted “by a majority vote of each house of the Legislature when ‘good cause’ exists to do so.” Funny, there’s no provision for the governor, Legislature or voters to name a successor if Weinstein is removed by the Legislature.
