Back in March, the mayor of Los Angeles signed a city ordinance requiring adult performers to wear condoms on all adult shoots within the city limits that required a film permit – which was a limited restriction, since few porn shoots shot in places where they needed a permit, and could just move outside the city. But on the ballot yesterday was Measure B, a law that would extend the ordinance county wide, which ended up passing, with 55.85 percent of the vote.

The measure would require producers of adult films to obtain a public health permit from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which could be revoked or suspended if county inspectors found on-set violations of the new law.
According to the measure, anyone on set found to be in violation of the law can be fined up to $1,000, jailed up to six months, or both, adding that each violation found will be punishable as a separate offense.
Producers would have to apply for the permits, prove they completed a training course on blood-borne pathogens and submit a plan for exposure control before they could receive a permit. [NBCLA]

The law was funded by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who poured $1.65 million into the campaign. Their own numbers cited eight cases of adult film-related HIV infections since 2004, only half of those having contracted it during adult films. And, as far as I can tell, none having contracted it while complying with current HIV-testing standards. Some of the retarded loopholes in those standards (which basically included having an HIV test every 30 days) included that they weren’t doing it in gay porn, despite 80 percent of new HIV infections coming from the gay community. Basically, instead of strengthening enforcement of the current standards, which were working when they were enforced, they created an entirely new one, which performers are probably going to avoid by shooting somewhere else anyway. As a Californian, I can assure you, this is a perfect example of California politics in action.

Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation which advocated for mandatory condom use, said it remains to be seen how the county plans to enforce the new law.

And remember, that’s coming from the guy who was trying the hardest to get it passed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sean Penn is lobbying to get California to recognize Harvey Milk’s birthday (May 22nd) as a holiday.

State Sen. Mark Leno plans to reintroduce a bill Tuesday with Penn by his side designating Milk’s birthday a “day of significance.” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the same bill last year. In his veto message, the governor said Milk should be honored in San Francisco but not statewide. Leno says Penn’s [Best Actor] award shows that Schwarzenegger’s argument about Milk being only of provincial interest no longer holds up. [THR]

Hmm, I’m not sure that argument holds up.  Otherwise we’d  have Ray Charles Day, Truman Capote Day, and Idi Amin Day.  But f-ck it, I’m all for holidays.  Plus it’s in May, so we could all wear speedos and run around pinching each other’s asses and saying “Happy Holigay!”  What? You’d rather work?