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California’s Condom Conundrum
I am on the road quite a bit now. Texas Tech, last week; West Point, on Thursday and Friday; the Hoover Institution in Silicon Valley late next week.
In anticipating the latter trip, I thought back to the year that the Rahe family spent in that neck of the woods and felt a wave of nostalgia. Where else would one stumble across the Church of Self-Realization? Where else is lunacy the norm? Where else does one find the great issues of the day debated?
You may think I jest. So I will offer you an example: the weighty question whether actors who perform in porn films should be required to wear condoms. Yes, that question is on the ballot; and, according to The Mercury News, the polling data suggests that a ban may be passed. There is already such a law in Los Angeles County, and it has caused the multibillion dollar porn industry to do its filming across the border in nearby places such as Oxnard. If Proposition 60 passes, who knows what will happen? The industry may move to Reno or Las Vegas or to, ahem, beautiful downtown Hillsdale.
Behind the proposition stand Michael Weinstein and his AIDS Healthcare Foundation, as well as the American Sexual Health Association, the California Academy of Preventive Medicine, and the California State Association of Occupational Health Nurses. These folks think it a matter of public health. Against it you will find a phalanx of organizations including the state’s Republican and Democratic parties, as well as the Libertarians and the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee. Also opposed are the Free Speech Coalition, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and LGBT-rights groups such as Equality California and the Transgender Law Center. These folks think it a matter of civil liberty. Others worry that it will cost California millions of dollars in tax revenue.
As far as I can tell, however, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump has weighed in. The next presidential debate would be a lot more interesting than the snoozer last night if this question was raised by the moderator. After all, it is a national issue. As The Mercury News observes,
[F]ederal regulations through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration already require condom use for X-rated actors in the same way health workers must use gloves and other protection when dealing with bodily fluids and other potential biohazards. OSHA has fined companies for filming without the proper protection, usually in response to a complaint from Weinstein’s organization. Cal-OSHA recently fined one producer $34,400, another $78,000.
I will not be called on to vote for or against Proposition 60. But Peter Robinson and Rob Long live in California, and they need your advice. So step up to the plate. What should be determinative: tax revenues, public health, or civil liberties?
So apparently government does belong in the bedroom with two consenting adults after all.
As long as it doesn’t disturb the dramatic flow of the movie, of course …
And this week’s “Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic” goes to …
civil liberties of course…
Two? You underestimate the porn industry.
Condom-drum.
Interesting alliances.
How do you plan to vote?!?!
They will just move everything to Texas. Different industry, same solution.
I cannot vote. I live in Michigan.
Interesting discussion…
I thank Dr. Rahe for keeping abreast of these subjects but doubly thank him for not asking me to illustrate them.
That a regulatory body would seek erection of barriers is hardly surprising. But it must be a hard thing for them to admit that sexual acts and lifestyles that they have been promoting for years and years are, in fact, a danger to one’s health.
Should this push production further into Nevada (and the Czech Republic), they will probably seek another way, a back door if you will, to impose fines via the distribution network.
So Prop 60 is a Trojan Horse, so to speak?
That’s the long and short of it.
The left wants to be dictators for everything.
Is that how potatoes have sex?
I always wondered where tater tots came from
Strange bedfellows!
You are a naughty man. Naughty, naughty, naughty!
Who? ME?
Y’all are funny…
This strikes me as one of the many questions that ought to be settled by elected representatives in the privacy of their committee rooms. What is it with all these ballot initiatives cluttering up the voting process? Isn’t this what we elect (and pay) congresspersons for? Yeesh.
The bond issues, especially, drive me nuts— the decision about whether or not we have to borrow money to build infrastructure is one that needs to be made by the legislators. We can hold them accountable if we don’t like the results (either the lousy infrastructure or the debt or—this happens—both).
No. No. No.
Bond issues are paid through property taxes. Every tinpot school board in America will go on spending spree like a drunken sailor in a bordello.
In my area the bond issues over a million go up to vote. They usually get turned down so then the government turns the project that maybe cost 2 million to three 900 thousand dollar projects that they do not have to put up for a vote.
I propose that we let state and local jurisdictions decide what leeway to give to local legislators, on the basis that there is no one solution that fits every place at every time.
The regulatory state reaches its climax? . . . Or is it premature?
Well. The founders did warn us that parchment barriers would be inadequate.
Californian here, and an Angeleno. I’ll be voting no.
If this is for public health safety, the next logical step is to require condoms for sex that happens regardless of any cameras that are rolling or not.
Sounds like a bit of a stretch.
California is overwhelmingly Democrat, this things was spurred by Democrats, it’s supported by every major left wing interest group in California, but watch, if it fails, they’ll say it was the Republican’s idea.