Group Opposes 'Safer Sex' Proposal

A group in opposition of Measure B, commonly known as the “safer sex” proposal, met Thursday to call upon the Aids Healthcare Foundation to remove a controversial advertisement.

The “No on Government Waste Committee,” a coalition of entertainment industry firms, performers, and health-care professionals who vehemently oppose the measure, believes that the television commercial is misleading because it does not disclose that HIV-positive performers, Derrick Burts and Darren James, were paid to appear.

 “If this measure passes we would lose 10,000 jobs and over a billion dollars in economic activity in the San Fernando Valley,” said Stuart Waldman, President of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association and a primary member of the committee. “The industry is extremely safe and has some of the highest health care standards of any industry in California.”

The measure would require condoms on adult-film sets.

Measure B, funded and placed on the ballot by AHF, would require all adult-films in Los Angeles to use condoms during filming and require producers to complete training on blood-borne pathogens in order to obtain a film permit. Fees charged for the permits would contribute towards enforcing the plan.

“They say it has to do with artistic freedom but we don't throw a man off a building and kill him for a movie so it's authentic,” said Miki Jackson, a Public Policy Consultant for AHF. “We shouldn't expose people in the workplace to diseases in order to film something.”

Burts, 25, became involved with the initiative when he contracted HIV after only three months of working in the industry.

“I have it for life," Burts says in the commercial. "My employers were responsible for providing a safe environment. They obviously didn't."

Measure B is one of eleven state-wide propositions that will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot.