“Pro-Family” Control-Freak Groups At it Again.
This time they’re attempting to bully Marriott International into removing “sexually explicit” movies from its in-room pay-per-view options. Apparently groups like American Family Association believe that adults shouldn’t have the opportunity to decide for themselves what they will view in the privacy of their own hotel rooms.
Several conservative groups, including the American Family Association, are asking Marriott International Inc. to stop giving hotel guests the option of ordering pay-per-view movies with strong sexual content - gay and straight.
AFA, based in Tupelo, said 47 “pro-family leaders” have signed a letter asking chain’s chief executive, J.W. Marriott Jr., for a meeting to discuss their concerns.
Marriott was told that stopping “porn movies” would be in keeping with the corporation’s position of “promoting the well-being of children and families,” AFA said in a news release.
Marriott’s website says the hotel chain has about 3,000 properties in the U.S. and 67 other countries and territories. AFA said most of these hotels offer in-room movies with pornographic content.
Roger Conner, vice president of communications for Marriott International, said Thursday the company would review the group’s letter and the request for a meeting.
Conner said Marriott and most hotel chains offer in-room entertainment that includes a wide range of films and “just one of those is adult offerings.”
“Every guest can quickly and easily block out just the adult movie offering by either calling the front desk or using their (TV) remote pad in the room,” Conner said. “It does not appear at all if the guest does not want the offering.”
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Among those participating in the letter to Marriott, according to AFA, are James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council; Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; Bishop Harry Jackson, chairman of High Impact Leadership Council; and Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media.
This is utterly ridiculous. If a guest doesn’t want adult movies shown in their room they simply don’t have to order them. If they want to prevent another individual, such as a minor staying with them, ordering them, they can ask the hotel management to block them from the room. It’s that simple. There is no reason for the RRRW busybodies to make it impossible for everybody who stays at a Marriott hotel to be unable to see a particular form of entertainment simply because they themselves wish not to.
In case they’re not able to understand the implications of their bullying tactics let me propose this. Perhaps atheists and other non-Christians should band together and demand that Bibles be banned from all hotel rooms. After all, if we don’t believe in the Bible and don’t wish to see them then why should something we don’t approve of be so readily available in the nightstand of every single hotel room of the nation? Consider what is in the Bible–infanticide, genocide, incest, prostitution, murder, misogyny and a whole host of other heinous atrocities. Yet it’s readily available in nearly every hotel room within easy access of any child.
Of course I’m not seriously proposing the above, but merely offering it as food for thought. The RRRW wishes to control everything and everyone, yet rends its garments if anybody utter a peep against them (let alone attempt to thwart their megalomania). This nation was built on individual freedoms, and that is exactly what groups like FOF, AFA and others are attempting to destroy under the boot of “Family Values”. It’s time that We the People fight back if we are to keep those precious freedoms.
Addendum. A comment has arrived from VickiLynne who said:
You know people like this ‘worry me’ more so than disturbing or angering me. There’s something else going on in their lives, that they would waste such energy on the invasion of consenting adults personal lives/homes/and bedrooms. There are so many other more urgent and pressing causes they could concern themselves with. World Hunger, The Economy, The War, The Lack of Health Care etc. and they’re worried about sex - I guess that’s what happens when you’re not happy in yours. I dont mean it as a laugh or for a joke.
They are the new Puritans, and they seem to think that if only life would return to how it was when Leave it to Beaver ruled the airwaves–the “Good Old Days”–things would be right with the world again. What they don’t understand is that the Good Old Days never existed. What they see on television as a depiction of the 50’s or whatever era they think was idyllic is pure fiction and can never be created or captured. As much as I love utopian fiction I’m wise enough to understand it’s just fiction. I don’t seriously expect to create a utopia of any kind, nor do I anticipate anybody ever could. Sadly some people think that if they just yell loud enough or apply enough force they can get their utopia (of course one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia).
I don’t see them applying their time, money and energy to serious problems like poverty, health care, world hunger or global warming any time soon. That takes genuine concern with the needs of others, and I don’t get the impression that they have that despite their constant calls to “please think of the children”. They could prove me wrong at some point in the future, however…
