Bill by Ferguson Attacks Condom Distribution

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) has returned to the battle over distribution of condoms to minors on public property, introducing a bill in Sacramento that would prohibit free condom distribution to anyone under 18 years of age on public property. A first-offense violation would call for a $200 fine.

“It’s against the law for minors to consent to sex to begin with,” Ferguson said Friday. “By giving out condoms, people are aiding and abetting a crime.”

In addition, he said, “when an adult hands a condom to a child, it’s telling them, in effect, that the adult community is in fact urging them and consenting for them to have sex, that ‘we’re approving of it.’ ”

Ferguson said his bill is based on a law which prohibits the distribution of cigarettes to minors on public property. He said he thought the bill’s chances for passage were improved because “it’s an election year. Otherwise the liberals would trash it.”

Opponents of the measure have already expressed their displeasure, Ferguson said, by dumping four sacks of horse manure at his local office.

Ferguson has clashed repeatedly with AIDS activists over condom distribution.

Last month, the group ACT-UP Orange County distributed more than a thousand colored condoms wrapped in information sheets to students at Newport Harbor High School. Some of the activists at the school also carried placards reading “Ferguson Stinks” and “Ferguson Is Deadlier Than the Virus.”

In November, 1991, a similar distribution took place at Tustin High School, provoking dozens of phone calls from outraged parents. ACT-UP also distributed about 500 condoms last May at Canyon High School in Anaheim after a candidate for student body president was removed from the ballot for handing out condoms with his campaign literature.