Questions about Romney's ties to Marriott porn sales

Christian Broadcasting Network ^ | July 2, 2007 | David Brody

[AFA-Michigan]

“So X-rated porn in hotels that is unaccessible unless one willingly purchases it is more dangerous than the stuff on street corners, libraries, and readily available on computers.”

You’re off in la-la land now, EEE. But if you can cite me where I ever wrote the above, I’ll bother to respond further.

Actually, it was a state law in both KY and OH, and the local prosecutors obviously didn’t consider it “dinky.”

Again, I’ll defer to your certainty of what’s in Penthouse and Hustler.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Thankfully, stopping their distribution of harmful material proven to be a motivating factor in sex crimes and marriage breakups was more important to their corporate conscience than making money off it.

Oooh, them not running porn movies put a .00001% dent in stopping sex crimes or marriage breakups. That'll show 'em.

A trillion internet websites (remember, most originate outside of the U.S.), adult bookstores, magazines, word-of-mouth, dirty text messages, and your mission will be complete!!

[wtc911]

Who are you kidding? There are thousands of legal porn outlets around this country from XXX shops to cable TV all of which are protected by our Constitution. It's a safe bet that these venues pffer much rougher stuff than the Marriot chain does.

Your writing suggests that you believe that the hotel's practice is illegal by federal statute. Do you? If yes, what is the law. If no, then since the hotel is breaking no laws what is your point?

[pissant]

Trashing Rudy has helped sink him. I think he’s on the way to irrelevance. Sooner rather than later, I hope.

[Saundra Duffy]

“How many hotels allow prostitutes to work the bars, and otherwise come to businessmen’s rooms an hour after the horny toad calls an escort agency.”

Hotels don’t ALLOW that kind of thing but it happens, sad to say. One time, I heard the people in the next room having sex - loud sex - I think it was pornographic, all those sounds. I can’t remember if it was at a Marriott. I wonder if we should make Mitt Romney responsible for unmarried people having loud sex in those hotel rooms.

People could bring their own DVD’s and DVD players and play that crap. People are stupid and evil. That’s not Mitt Romney’s fault.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

You’re off in la-la land now, EEE. But if you can cite me where I ever wrote the above, I’ll bother to respond further.

I didn't imply that you wrote it. I merely pointed out how incredibly irrational and myopic your agenda is.

Actually, it was a state law in both KY and OH, and the local prosecutors obviously didn’t consider it “dinky.”

Big deal, so it only applied to those Marriotts in the Greater Cincy area, in which the law is going to get overturned anyway and the prosecutors will end up looking like chumps. Now what about the rest of the Marriotts and other hotels in other cities, genius. You've got your work cut out for you.

Again, I’ll defer to your certainty of what’s in Penthouse and Hustler.

Yeah you probably got all the issues dating back to the 70s stashed in your closet somewhere hypocrite.

[ccmay]

At the end of the day I fear the morality police and in the end someone always wants to define and impose their own brand. Not for me, thanks.

Hear, Hear.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

How many hotels allow prostitutes to work the bars, and otherwise come to businessmen's rooms an hour after the horny toad calls an escort agency.

Even if hotels did forbid it, I mean, REALLY. What's to stop some guy from going to the bar and picking up some chick and taking her back to his room.

If hotels simply existed for someone to get a night's sleep, they'd go out of business.

[AFA-Michigan]

Triple E, ignoring my counsel not to rush to put his ignorance of the law on display, wrote:

“You said earlier some obscenity fell under a federal offense. Where is that law? What type of porn falls under this statute. How do you define this anyway? I’m sure it’s next to the invisible one that legalizes abortion.”

Don’t make this so easy, EEE. Takes all the sport out of it.

U.S. Code — Title 18 — Chapter 71. Obscenity:
http://www.access.gpo.gov/uscode/title18/parti_chapter71_.html

And how I define obscenity is irrelevant. It’s how the U.S. Supreme Court has defined it that’s actually relevant to federal prosecution.

“Miller v California sets out the ‘modern’ test for obscenity. After years in which no Supreme Court opinion could command majority support, five members of the Court in Miller set out a several-part test for judging obscenity statutes: (1) the proscribed material must depict or describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, (2) the conduct must be specifically described in the law, and (3) the work must, taken as a whole, lack serious value and must appeal to a prurient interest in sex. What is patently offensive is to be determined by applying community values, but any jury decision in these cases is subject to independent constitutional review.”
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/obscenity.htm

Here’s another very informative link that will enlighten Freepers actually interested in facts about this issue and the law, rather than EEE’s erroneous suppositions:

http://www.obscenitycrimes.org/cliches2.cfm

[Ditto]

This post is

LAME!

Get a life

[AnnaZ]

This may seem like an interesting fishing expedition for someone, but I would like to know what it has to do with being President. (My guess? Nada.)

(P.S. I'm a Thompson supporter... but this doesn't make me hate Romney. And I don't like pornography -- I think it's insidious, soul-suckingly dangerous.)

[ccmay]

I wonder if we should make Mitt Romney responsible for unmarried people having loud sex in those hotel rooms.

There are definitely some people who would have the government regulate that. I don't want them in the Republican party. To them I say, go hang out with Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer on the whacko fringe where you belong.

-ccm

[AFA-Michigan]

Canticle is beside herself: “What would you like Mitt Romney to do about it? It isn’t his company. Should he break down the doors of each hotel room and bash in the TV sets with a hammer? Should he grab his Bible and go screeching down the halls with a bullhorn condemning everyone to hell? This is lunacy.”

Actually, Canticle, it’s your hysteria that’s approaching lunacy.

But the simple answer to your question is that while he was a board member — during which it was his company to direct, i.e., board of “directors” — we’d have liked it if he had simply opened his mouth and made a formal motion that Marriott join Omni and Days Inn and other hotels that prohibit X-rated porn flicks in their rooms.

And as a candidate for president who said he believes pornographic movies contributed to the VA Tech shootings, he could publicly encourage his friends the Marriotts to stop selling the stuff.

There, doesn’t that make you feel better? No hammers. No Bibles. No bullhorns.

Now you can calm down now and let the hysterics just melt away...

[loboinok]

montag813 - "Yeah, so sick of tight-ass moralists..."

" Continental Congress

Whereas true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness: Resolved, That it be, and it is hereby earnestly recommended to the several states, to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof, and for the suppressing theatrical entertainments, horse racing, gaming, and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and manners.

-Journals of the American Congress: From 1774 to 1788, (Washington: Way and Gideon, 1823), Vol. III, p. 85. This resolution passed on October 12, 1778.

You think our founding fathers were "tight-ass moralists"?

Extremely Extreme Extremist - "Shhh! Hyper-moralists are immune to the laws of supply and demand."

Benjamin Rush

[Gaming] "This disorder seizes gentlemen in some instances before breakfast in the morning, and continues with only short intervals for meals, till 11 o'clock at night. It affects some people in the night as well as the day, and on Sundays as well as week days. . . . This madness is of a destructive tendency, and often conducts persons afflicted with it to poverty, imprisonment, and an ignominious death."

-The Selected Writings of Benjamin Rush, (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), p. 215. "On the Different Species of Mania.

HitmanLV - "...there is a wing of conservative types who are notably prudish."

"The last thing I shall mention, is first of importance and that is, to avoid gaming. This is a vice which is productive of every possible evil, equally injurious to the morals and health of its votaries. It is the child of avarice, the brother of inequity, and father of mischief. It has been the ruin of many worthy families; the loss of many a man's honor; and the cause of suicide. To all those who enter the list, it is equally fascinating; the successful gamester pushes his good fortune till it is overtaken by a reverse; the losing gamester, in hopes of retrieving past misfortunes, goes on from bad to worse; till grown desperate, he pushes at everything; and loses his all. In a word, few gain by this abominable practice (the profit, if any, being diffused) while thousands are injured."

-The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1938), Vol. 26, p. 40. This advice was given to by Washington to his nephew in a letter on January 15, 1783.

moonman - "A Christian or Islamic 'fundamentalist' mentality tells one, "No viewing of porn, having anal or oral sex, no drug use, no tobacco use and no alcohol"

Being moral, free and responsible in the choices we make that affect our family, community and country is one thing, having a fanatical theocratic religious/state actor mandate their choices is another.

As a prudish, tight-ass moralist, damnable Bible thumping busybody, I, for one, don't appreciate your trying to blend the two.

"[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -- John Adams

"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and [which] insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments." -- Charles Carroll - Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"[T]he primary objects of government are the peace, order, and prosperity of society. . . . To the promotion of these objects, particularly in a republican government, good morals are essential. Institutions for the promotion of good morals are therefore objects of legislative provision and support: and among these . . . religious institutions are eminently useful and important. . . . [T]he legislature, charged with the great interests of the community, may, and ought to countenance, aid and protect religious institutions—institutions wisely calculated to direct men to the performance of all the duties arising from their connection with each other, and to prevent or repress those evils which flow from unrestrained passion." -- Oliver Ellsworth - Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court

"We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible. For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism." -- Benjamin Rush

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of man and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?"

"And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?" -- George Washington

[AFA-Michigan]

EEE has never heard the wise old maxim about being in a hole:

“Big deal, so (the law) only applied to those Marriotts in the Greater Cincy area, in which the law is going to get overturned anyway and the prosecutors will end up looking like chumps.”

Thing is, EEE, the highly-paid Marriott corp lawyers came to a different conclusion. They decided to remove the chain-wide porn flicks. The law has not been overturned. And the prosecutors looked like they were enforcing the law.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

You're quite the spinner, aren't you? No hysterics here. Sorry to disappoint you. I'm not the one peeking through windows to make sure nobody is doing something nasty.

we’d have liked it if he had simply opened his mouth and made a formal motion that Marriott join Omni and Days Inn and other hotels that prohibit X-rated porn flicks in their rooms.

How do you know he didn't? How do you know his objection wasn't the reason Marriott wrote the letter?

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

would bet that every one of these bluenoses has a huge stash of porn squirreled away. That's usually the way this works, like all the TV preachers that turn out to be homos and whoremongers.

I'd bet on it.

[HitmanLV]

Hotels don’t ALLOW that kind of thing but it happens, sad to say.

They know it and look the other way. They let it slide.

[HitmanLV]

I agree - just saying the hospitality biz looks the other way a whole lot.