CANOGA PARK, Calif. — HBO televised last night the season opener of “VICE News Tonight,” which chronicled the road to Proposition 60 and the argument against the measure.
Evil Angel founder John Stagliano and adult star Chanel Preston try to answer the question: Could Prop 60, if passed, kill California's adult film industry?
Today, California voters will decide the fate of Prop 60, which, if passed, would levy stiff fines for those in violation of bloodborne pathogen regulations and enable whistleblowers to enforce the proposal when the state fails to do so.
In the VICE segment called “Porn Politics,” Stagliano noted that Prop 60’s proponents have been running a campaign that is not only dishonest but offensive because the two former performers in TV spots who said they became HIV-positive on the porn set — Cameron Bay and Derrick Burts — are not telling the truth.
“They are lying,” Stagliano told VICE’s Michael Moynihan, who is the magazine’s managing editor. “There is no other performer that they worked with [at the time] that was HIV positive.”
When Moynihan queried Rick Taylor from Yes on Prop 60, the campaign manager refused to confirm that Bay and Burts contracted the virus on set, saying, “none of us know” how they obtained HIV. Taylor, however, said: “I believe them.”
Prop 60, if passed, could potentially force producers of adult content out of state. Moynihan asked Stagliano where he would go.
“We’d go somewhere else; we’ll go to Europe,” Stagliano said. “Whatever. Come after us, you assholes. God damn! Why is it that people want to run other people’s lives.”
Pictured: John Stagliano
