A measure mandating condom use on all adult film sets in California will appear on the 2016 ballot after organizers gathered the required number of signatures last week.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation said Thursday it had acquired 371,000 signatures for its proposal, slightly more than the 366,880 required by the state to place the measure on the ballot, according to Reuters.
The measure would require all adult films that shoot in California to use condoms on set.
In a statement, AIDS Healthcare Foundation president Michael Weinstein said that “it’s only fair that these performers be afforded the same safeguards as other Californians in their workplaces.”
“In 2012 in Los Angeles with Measure B and with our initial polling for this measure, voter sentiment favoring safer sex in adult films was clear: unlike most politicians, voters were not squeamish about this issue. seeing it as a means to protect the health and safety of performers working in the industry,” Weinstein said. “In November 2016, we anticipate California voters will once again reaffirm.”
Measure B, passed by California voters in 2012, mandated condom use in all pornographic films filmed in Los Angeles County. Weinstein’s organization was also a driving force behind that legislation.
In a blog post, the Free Speech Coalition, an adult industry advocacy group, blasted the measure, saying it would install Weinstein as the state’s “porn czar” because of a provision that would allow him to personally enforce the law.
“The last thing California needs is a million-dollar porn czar to police adult performers,” Free Speech Coalition’s Diana Duke said in a statement. “Weinstein has already wasted millions of dollars of nonprofit funds to harass adult performers. Money that should have gone to prevention campaigns in high risk communities has instead been spent attacking a highly regulated industry that hasn’t seen an on-set HIV transmission in over ten years.”
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation says it will continue to collect signatures while the state works to verify those already collected in an effort to ensure the measure appears on the ballot.
Opponents of the bill claim adult film consumers do not like to see performers wearing condoms. Several performers and adult industry executives told Breitbart News earlier this year that laws requiring mandatory condom use would push the highly lucrative industry out of California and into states like Nevada and Florida, where adult film regulations are far less strict.