Ever obsessed with pornography, “decency” activists are going after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for being soft on porn while sitting on the board of the Marriott hotel chain.
What a pleasure to see conservative Christian sharks eating one of their own. It’s the delicious sequel to the American Family Association demanding that (Mormon) Brigham Young University refuse future million-dollar donations from the Marriott family because the cash is “tainted by porn.”
Romney’s latest critics include Phil Burress, the self-proclaimed “porn addict” who’s trying to clean up Ohio (his motto: porn ruins your marriage, and if it doesn’t, gays will); and Focus on the Family, the James Dobson wolfpack who believe that sex is only legit for about a third of the country (i.e., married people).
Like almost all large hotel chains, Marriott makes tens of millions of dollars on in-room adult films. In fact, porn supports the rest of the pay-per-view system. “If we were to eliminate the ‘R’ and non-rated offerings, the systems would not be economic,” Bill Marriott recently wrote the American Decency Association.
Having already abandoned his pro-choice position like an uncomfortable shirt in order to win Republican votes, Romney has been pulling a “I didn’t inhale” routine about his 9-year tenure on the Marriott board. He says he did not recall the board discussing porn, and said he didn’t know how much revenue pornography generates for the hotel chain—despite being a “hands-on” member of the Audit Committee.
On the one hand, Romney has taken an admirable position—i.e., a reasonable, democratic, adult view—that “I am not pursuing an effort to try and stop adults from being able to acquire or see things that I find objectionable; that’s their right.” But like all those encouraging fear to make censorship sound reasonable, he continues, “I do vehemently oppose practices or business procedures that will allow kids to be exposed to obscenity,” conveniently ignoring the fact that any parent can lock any child out of porn on the family or hotel TV set.
Showing his true colors, Romney blamed porn for the Virginia Tech massacre: “Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games,” he said 8 weeks ago. “The Virginia Tech shooter, like the Columbine shooters before him, had drunk from this cesspool.”
It’s hard to tell what Romney lacks more: insight or integrity.