User:Scalhotrod/Mark Kernes

Mark Kernes (born July 20, 1948) is a journalist known for his work with the AVN Media Network as one of its Senior Editors and its Chief Legal Analyst. The primary outlet for his efforts is AVN magazine and its associated website. Kernes was also a reporter for the Washington Times. He is a member of the advisory council for the Woodhull Alliance non-profit organization and the Board of Directors for the Free Speech Coalition (FSC). Kernes is an advocate for free speech as well as the limit or reduction of government intrusion into the personal lives of citizens.

Early life and education
Kernes is a graduate of New York University in 1970 and received a Liberal Arts degree in English After graduation his father, a court reporter, suggested he go to a stenotype academy and later graduated in 1971.

Pre-journalism
Kernes worked as a freelance court reporter (stenographer) in and around the criminal and civil courts in the Philadelphia and Media, Pennsylvania areas for 19 years

Journalism
Kernes has attended and reported on a number of obscenity and other free-speech-related court hearings, and has gone “undercover” to and reported on various religio-conservative events such as the Values Voter Summits and the Conservative Political Action Conferences. His first piece for his future employer, AVN magazine, was a movie review he submitted in 1983. The founder of Adult Video News magazine, Paul Fishbein, was the night manager of a video rental store in Philadelphia called Movies Unlimited. Fishbean had just started the publication which was a sixteen-page newsletter given away at the front counter.

In 2012, Kernes is an invited essayist for Boing Boing magazine as a contributor on a series of articles that "had a profound effect on our invited essayists."

Advocacy
Kernes has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Free Speech Coalition, the adult industry trade organization, for more than a decade and has lobbied on the industry’s behalf in the California legislature.

In 2005, the Washington Times published a letter to its editor from Kernes in response to an Op-Ed column titled "'Extreme' judicial activism" by Senators Orrin Hatch and Sam Brownback.


 * U.S.C.2257

Kernes has said the following about these measures and proposed California laws which are directed at the adult film industry in which he considers the language problematic, "...my analysis of both Measure B and AB-332, which, if you read the language and it refers to section 5193 of the health code… Fine. What does that say? Then you go online, go to the health code and read it. And when you read it, you say, ‘Wait a minute. There’s a time bomb here.’ Because if you have to obey everything that’s in section 5193 of the health code, it means you cannot have two people having sex where their skin touches, at all! Of course, AIDS Healthcare [Foundation] says it’s just a law to make people wear condoms, but it’s not. You really have to wear a hazmat suit. That’s the only way you can fulfill the requirements of either Measure B or AB-332."
 * Measure B, AB332 and AB1576


 * Censorship and obscenity

Publishing
Kernes is working on a collection of his AVN articles for publication in book form, to be illustrated by the 3D photographs he takes on adult movie sets.

Personal life
Kernes knew adult film actor and director John Leslie well. After Leslie's death in 2010, said Leslie was one of the first actors to cross over to directing, which he did well at because of an artistic eye for detail and talent for handling actors.

“A lot of people really wanted to work with him because he took a lot of pride in his work, and paid attention to details,” said Kernes, who confirmed Leslie’s death.

“And being an actor at heart, he was more disposed to letting the performers take the lead in terms of the executing the scene and the performers liked that” Kernes said.