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 Hotels' in-room movie selections should not include porn, according to two religious scholars.
July 12th, 2012
11:03 AM ET
Strange religious bedfellows unite for letter against hotel pornBy Dan Merica, CNN (CNN) – A letter penned by two notable scholars - a Christian and a Muslim - and sent to a number of different hotel industry executives has asked those hotels to remove pornography from their company’s in-room movie selections. Robert P. George, a professor at Princeton University and the past chairman of the conservative National Organization for Marriage, and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, co-founder of Zaytuna College, a Muslim school, wrote the letter to urge hotels “to do what is right as a matter of conscience.” “We are, respectively, a Christian and a Muslim, but we appeal to you not on the basis of truths revealed in our scriptures but on the basis of a commitment that should be shared by all people of reason and goodwill: a commitment to human dignity and the common good,” reads the letter. The letter marks the joining of two unique men with two distinctly different faiths. Yusuf says they were able to put aside their disagreement on other issues because of their commitment to this cause. “We need to see that those things that are threatening our society today are much graver than anything that may divide us,” he told CNN. CNN's Belief Blog: the faith angles behind the big stories Reaction to the letter from some adult film stars - and even from some advocates for removing porn from hotels - was negative. Craig Gross, a pastor and the founder of XXXchurch.com, says the letter is an empty gesture with no power behind it. “It has got to be one of the dumbest letters I have ever read,” Gross said. “It is like asking the Internet to stop selling porn. It sounds good and all, but it isn’t going to happen.” But the letter’s authors argue that the Internet and hotels are different, with hotel owners directly profiting off the temptation of porn. “We urge you to do away with pornography in your hotels because it is morally wrong to seek to profit from the suffering, degradation, or corruption of others,” states the letter. “You are placing temptation in their path - temptation for the sake of profit. That is unjust. Moreover, the fact that something is chosen freely does not make it right.” Yusuf continued to use this argument in an interview with CNN. “Just because we are able to do something doesn’t mean it is what we should be doing. And just because you can sell these things doesn’t mean it is something you should be selling,” he said. In Gross’ opinion, this logic is a slippery slope. When planes offer access to WiFi, is that placing temptation in the path of those who may view porn on the Web? When hotels offer room service, he asks, are they tempting dieters? Gross has a long history of helping those with porn addictions, and his website is dedicated to getting people help. According to him, removing porn from hotels is a futile endeavor because of the "unfettered availability of porn on the Web. “ According to a 2005 report on the state of the adult entertainment by Adult Video News, a trade journal on the adult-film industry, 55% of hotel movie rentals are porn movie rentals. The average revenue from movie rentals, according to LodgeNet, a company that provides in-room entertainment services, was $16.51 per room per month in 2008. In the third quarter of 2009, LodgeNet brought in $64.8 million. This, however, included more family-friendly options as well. A 2011 report by Robert Mandelbaum at Colliers PKF Hospitality Research found that from 2000 to 2009, movie rental revenue for hotels in general decreased 39%. Even with the reported slip, Gross and other critics acknowledged there is a demand for adult entertainment. “This is supply and demand,” Gross said. “We spin our wheels doing all the wrong things. The issue is not that it is available; the issue is that people buy it.” Prior to this letter, however, some hotels had already pledged to remove pornography from their programming or had removed it. In 2011, Marriott International - a company founded by a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that continues deep Mormon ties - pledged to phase out adult content from all hotel rooms. The move came after groups like Focus on the Family met with Marriott officials to urge them to remove adult movies. The church of porn and football “Adult content will be off the menu for virtually all of our newly built hotels,” read the Marriott statement. “Over the next few years, this will be the policy across our system.” Marriott is not the first hotel group to do this, though. Omni Hotels, a Dallas-based luxury hotel chain, removed all adult films from its in-room systems in 1999. According to other reports, adult-free programming is helping the Omni differentiate itself in the hotel market. Websites like cleanhotels.com look to help porn-free hotels by compiling a list of hotels that do not offer adult entertainment and leading people to them. Cleanhotels.com says it does so because its supporters want to know they are “supporting a facility that cares enough about the wellbeing of its customers not to make harmful pornographic movies available.” The American Hotel & Lodging Association, however, defends the right of hotels to choose what services to offer in their rooms. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter “In-room offerings such as this are made available based on market demand, are not offered in all hotels, and are subject to the same legal review all hotel operations are subject to,” read a statement from Kathryn Potter, senior vice president of marketing and communications for the association. Ron Jeremy, an adult-film star who has been in over 2,000 porn films, according to the Internet Adult Film Database, sees efforts to remove porn from hotels as attacks on freedom of speech. “What they have to understand is that freedom of speech works for all of us, not just for them,” Jeremy said about those who want to get porn out of hotel rooms. “This is a country that is secular; you have freedom from religion and freedom of religion. Give me a break.” While Jeremy said he is all for making sure kids in hotel rooms can’t get to porn - “I think that is marvelous” - he said he doesn’t see why adults shouldn’t watch “consenting adults have consenting sex.” "If a guy has a hard day at work or is at a convention and wants to sit down in his hotel room and puts on an adult film and plays spank the monkey, why can’t he do that?" soundoff (1,415 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next »
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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I'm in that weird part of the internet again...
. . . by your own choice and actions.
Embrace weirdness. It is usually a lot more fun and free and creative than normality.
Just a couple of cultists not minding their business.
Christians demand that all hotel rooms have bibles and no hotels have porn channels, but they believe it is everyone else forcing their opinions on them.
The religious prefer to mind other peoples business... it makes them feel like a God Cop, twirling their bible baton, self assured in their own supposed righteousness, handing out citations to any and all who cross their path of judgement...
Robert P. George, the Christian author of the letter, was once chairman of NOM (National Organization for Marriage). NOM exists use government limit equality for gays. Sounds like this letter is a way for him to sound like he's for more that just hating gays, a veneer over his true Christian hatred of gay people.
Adding a repression of freedom of choice is not really an improvement over his present activities.
Maybe they should just both quit watching the stuff.
Even more proof that nothing in our society is a greater threat to our freedom than religion...
How is a letter proof that religion threatens freedom?
Amen to that!
The letter itself may not be "proof", but the fact the Christian author of the letter was former chairman of NOM (National Organization for Marriage). NOM exists to limit the freedoms of people Christians hate.
"How is a letter proof that religion threatens freedom?"
It's not the letter, it's the fact that religious people are constantly trying to force their beliefs on others...
Amen to that!!!!
These guys are nitwits. You don't solve the problem by attacking the suppliers, you solve it by convincing those who are making the demand. Supply and demand, supply and demand.
You sir, have hit the nail on the head. That is exactly how Christians should treat the abortion debate as well
These two yoyos forget that they are using their personal definitions of moral/immoral to make their entire argument. If p*rn*graphy is indeed immoral, then they have a point. But since they are defining these words based on their religion, it just doesn't fly in a secular country. I don't find p*rn*graphy to be the least immoral. I do find killing off the entire human population, including children and unborn fetuses, except for Noah's incestuous family, to be immoral. Perhaps we should ban all Christians and Muslims from hotels.
The term "religious scholars" is an oxymoron. Again, the way religious nut jobs think: I do not agree with it and so therefore YOU can not do it either, even though you are an adult and should have the right to choose what you can and can't do.
Billy Mays was an "oxy"moron
Billy Mays was an awesome coke head. Is that an oxymoron?
this gives me a thought maybe we should have a site called Biblelesshotels.com. From now on everyone should toss the bible in the drawer
Ummm, it is in the drawer.
Perhaps you are suggesting that people remove it from the drawer?
If you believe it to be a work of fiction, why do you fear it so?
Sorry i meant toss it out and as for "fear" – LOL. I despise it as a worthless piece of fiction, i don't "fear" it. Dream on buddy
@Pat,
but that's the point. If you don't fear it, why do you need to destroy it?
It is harmless to you.
Well, that work of fiction has been the basis of more killings than can be counted, especially if you include the alleged ones in the book itself. Remember how God killed every person on the planet during a big tizzy fit? He sure aborted a lot of babies that day. It's also been used to justify the loss of freedom for many people, including African Americans. So clearly it is dangerous.
@James,
I would argue that organized religion is much more dangerous than a book lying in a hotel nightstand. (It reminds me of 'K' from Men in Black: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.")
One questions the commitment of the Gideons. I can imagine that there might be believers who benefited from a bible being there, but it's really hard to imagine there are a significant number of converts because of the work of the Gideons.
Religious scholars? Isn't that an oxymoron?
Nice try, but no, it is quite evidently not an oxymoron.
indeed it is with emphasei on "moron"!
Want pr0n? All you have to do is turn to the bible:
Ezekiel 23:19-21
19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prost itute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. 21 So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.
(NIV 1984)
Oh yeah..thats the stuff...
Oh, man that got me hot. I just spilled my seed on the ground. Now I won't be able to impregnate my 2nd wife and sister in law and God will kill me. Thanks a bunch, Honey Badger!
the guy in the picture is so f-r-e-a-k-i-n HOT! He does not need to be looking at p-0-r-n, he just needs to call me!
Remove the offensive and disgusting bibles from hotels instead. Again comes religion shoving it's nose into our bedrooms and private lives. religion is a disease
So, you are just a echo of the Religious extremist in this article.
Always amazing when cases and calls from censorship always come from the far right and far left.
So Mark, how would you feel if you checked into a hotel and saw that the only book in your room was a Quran?
@Hypocrisy spotter,
I've stayed in hotel rooms with the Quran and others with the Book of Mormon. Actually if you dare to look at them they are quite interesting.
I found more similarities (in tone) than differences between the Quran and the Bible. Much more than I expected.
I see no threat in trying to understand what people believe.
I don't know about Mark, but I wouldn't think anything of it. The bibles in hotels are donated, and I would assume the Quran was too. I would wonder why no one had donated bibles to the hotel yet.
Reduce use of por.n in one of the most se.xually repressed of modern nations, built on a 300+ years history of Puritanical dogma, suffering from a recent rise in Fun.damentalism and where we consume more por.n than any other nation on the planet?
Good luck with that.
I can't help but note that none of you objecting to the letter and the efforts of these two men have anything to say about how great p.orn is for the community. I will grant you that there is a freedom of expression that allows p.orn to exist (and rightfully so), but it still doesn't make it right. So, for the sake of all, please explain how p.orn is GOOD for the community. Why should we embrace it?
I completely proved its value, but the censor keeps wiping out my reply. Odd that in an article about p*rn you can't even type the word in reply.
"embracing" is a choice. This is about a right. Question: why should we "embrace" people imposing their morals and views on others?
@justsaying...so you have a right to watch p.orn in your hotel room? Like you have a right to vote and s right to be free of unreasonable searches, etc. That's what our troops are fighting for? So some idiot can jack off in his hotel room? Thanks for the clarification.
James...sorry you can't get your post to go through. I doubt however that you can prove the value of any enterprise that subjects woman (those on screen and those off) to humiliation and degradation and violence.
REMOVE THE STUPID BIBLES FROM HOTELS! The first thing I do whenever I go to a hotel is go into the nightstand pull out the bible ripped the pages out and toss it out the door.
Thank you for taking a stand. So will i!
And this benefits you in some way? Can't just leave it in the nightstand as an irrelevance to you?
You're able to sleep better knowing that you've somehow cast out the demons?
Actually, I used to take those bibles home. I found a good use for them. Until I realized that Charmin was softer.
@Luis,
how long did that take you? It sounds like you had to try more than one bible? That's an awful lot of pages. You must have been mighty chafed.
"And this benefits you in some way? Can't just leave it in the nightstand as an irrelevance to you?"
Really who asked you anyway? mind your own business
"Mind my own business" posted as a response on an internet religious forum.
That's the funniest thing I've read today. Thank you.
Why would you destroy the single best piece of evidence that religion is made up and dangerous?
"Moreover, the fact that something is chosen freely does not make it right."
But please choose to follow Christianity of Islam of your own free will.
Remember to take the Bibles out as well as it should be rated 18+ for se.xu.al and violent content.
Why not take that the Gideon Bible out of the drawer. It is filled with mass murder, incest, adultry, even the hero has his own son murdered! I think it is horrible that children have access to that kind of literature.
But with the p.orn gone what else will hotel guests have to jerk it to? Reading about Lot's daughters getting him drunk and nailing him is the last respite of the h o r n y hotel hobgoblins...
A counter protest might work better, demanding that hotels provide books from every religion. Not only a Bible, but a Koran, whatever the Scientology text is, one from the Church of Satan, a Wiccan text, a collection of Buddhist scriptures, a Book of Mormon, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Svetambara, the Rasa'il al-hikmah, the Talmud, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, The Gospel According to Spiritism, the Tao Te Ching, the Yasna, just get them all in there. Even a book on atheist thinking.
If they actually did it, the phone at the front desk would ring constantly from Christians who feel that the presence of those texts is against their religion. You see, this practice only makes sense if the text in question is theirs. Faced with some other text, they would get offended.
But really the only reason that the corporations have those is that they get them free. If they had to pay for them, there would be no texts.
So demand equality for all religious texts!
I always open those bibles and write Darwin quotes and evolutionary facts in them.
No. "Casting out demons . . . ". What if they're not demons. What if just by watching you cast out 'that' vision and 'that' vision resides on one of the molecules cast. Riding the molecule until finding host so that they can walk the Earth with us again. You know? More about love than so many are of the time to consider. There are so many who take the Bible as though a weapon to choke off others. And that is just NOT what the Bible is.
Did you just hear a loud crack? It was my heart breaking. I've never been so dpanipoisted ever. I've watched every second of this show this season. And I was pumped to go see the tour and see my biggest inspiration Caytlinn. But wait. They took out BOTH shows in the NW. But have five, FIVE!, shows in California. I guess Caytlinn's hometown wasn't important enought to go to since she was in the Top 6? And do you not see all of these comments below me? We are NOT happy about this. Its not just a couple people, we're big SYTYCD fans up here and do we get any love? No. None. So I think i'll cry myself to sleep tonight knowing that I'm not going to see my favorite dancers ever.
Something like 40% of the global population does not have access to a functioning toilet. But yeah, we should really be more concerned about what people do in the privacy of their hotel rooms. Way to get your priorities straight.
YYYYYYUUUUUUUUUPPPP!!
Don't get it. Now they want to control what me watch in our privacy.
Are you going to say the same thing to PETA, NAACP, and the ACLU?
@Joxer. No, why would I? Those are organizations with a specific, limited purpose. I didn't realize that xtians limited themselves to caring about sex acts. I thought the message of Jesus was to look out for the less fortunate. Maybe my copy of the bible is dated, though.