Mitt, the Marriotts and the Fight Against Pornography

Marriott hotels will be phasing out in-room pay-per-view pornography over the next five years, giving up about $100 million in revenues to do so. (Lucky for them, Marriott guests will still be able to enjoy the Book of Mormon stashed in the nightstand drawer in Marriott hotel rooms, courtesy of the mega-Mormon Marriott family.)

The hotel chain says that the decision is economic: in-room porn profits have tanked because the porn industry has moved on-line.

But it’s being reported that the move is actually an effort to protect Romney against another round of flak from socially conservative and evangelical voters in Iowa, where the Marriott-porn issue flared up for a brief moment in July 2007. (Back then, Romney even came in for criticism from the LDS Church-owned Deseret News, in an editorial with the unfortunate title “The nasty taint of porn.”)

I don’t buy it.

Share
Stay in the loop!
Enter your email to receive updates on our LDS Living content