LOS ANGELES – The plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Los Angeles County’s Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act want the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to accelerate their appeal of a lower court’s decision to uphold the law while striking down some of its provisions.
Adult studio Vivid Entertainment and performers Kayden Kross and Logan Pierce said they will appeal several of the rulings in U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson’s Aug. 16 decision regarding L.A. County’s “condoms in porn” ordinance, familiarly known as Measure B. Chief among the points with which the plaintiff’s disagree are Pregerson’s decision to allow an intervener to remain in the case and the judge’s declination to enjoin parts of the law.
“Our Notice of Appeal will challenge the few remaining parts of the statute that the judge has not enjoined, and he has enjoined much of the provisions including the funding,” said First Amendment attorney Paul Cambria, who represents the plaintiffs. “Our appeal will also encompass the propriety of AIDS Healthcare Foundation as a party to the action.”
AHF, a mainstream HIV/AIDS charity that wrote the ordinance, funded its addition to the ballot in November 2012 and then mounted an enormous public relations campaign to promote the law’s passage, was granted intervener status in the lawsuit after alleging L.A. County lacked the desire to present an effective defense of Measure B. The foundation’s president has indicated his organization will spend whatever funds are necessary to ensure Measure B withstands legal challenges. He also has threatened to mount similar ballot initiatives nationwide.
The adult entertainment industry, embodied in the lawsuit by Vivid, Kross and Pierce, sees the law and intrusive and unnecessary, considering the industry has developed efficient methods to test for and present the spread of sexually transmitted infections. The lawsuit ultimately seeks to have the law dismantled as an impermissible assault on protected speech.
“We will continue our First Amendment fight for as long as it takes,” Vivid co-founder and chairman Steven Hirsch said. “We look forward to presenting our case and strongly believe that we will ultimately prevail.”
Vivid, Kross and Pierce are supported in their appeal by adult industry trade association Free Speech Coalition, according to the association’s chief executive officer, Diane Duke.
