Posted by:
steve benson
(
)
Date: December 04, 2012 05:08PM
In rejoining the Marriott board, MoMitt released the following statement:
“It is an honor to once again be able to serve in the company of leaders like Bill Marriott . . . and to support the work of the tens of thousands of Marriott associates who make Marriott International the renowned success that it is."
MoMitt had previously, in two separate stints, served on the Marriott board for a combined tenure of 11 years. According to his official campaign expense records, in 2010 he earned almost $114,000 as a Marriott board member.
MoMitt's ties to the Marriott family began at birth. He was named after the chain's founder, J. Willard Marriott, who was a friend of MoMitt's father, George. During his run for the presidency, Marriott hotels were MoMitt's preferred lodging. Marriott family members have been longtime supporters of, and donors to, MoMitt's political activities.
In a statement by the Marriott Corp's executive chairman, J.W. Marriott, Jr., declared: “We will benefit from his tremendous energy and capability to guide long-term success in an increasingly complex business environment."
(from "Boston Globe," 4 December 2012)
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So, MoMitt rejoins a company that has a history of providing porn to its paying customers--backed in that endeavor by a hypocritical Mormon Church establishment that has failed to criticize the Marriott Corporation's practice--although the LDS Church itself has a history of strongly denouncing what it regards as the evils of porn.
The Marriott Corporation's business embrace of porn-peddling to its paying customers has not escaped the eye of Christian critics. A few years ago, a group of conservative Christians, concerned with what they regard as the Mormon Marriott family’s lack of moral decency in providing hard-core porn to its hotel room guests, asked the Marriott Corporation to stand down and remove the movies from their hotel room--or at least to make their porno material harder to view.
As the "Associated Press" reported:
“A coalition of Christian groups are asking the Marriott hotel chain to remove adult movies from their rooms or make it more difficult for guests to access them.
“The Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family is among the groups who made their case to Marriott International at a meeting in Washington, D.C., this week. . . . [T]he [hotel] company [has reportedly] promised to forward the groups' concerns to its franchise owners, who will respond in July.”
("Colo.-based group asks hotel chain to remove porn movies." by "Associated Press," as reported "9News" TV, Denver Colorado, 18 May 2008)
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In the wake of the controversy, a highly-placed senior Marriott executive insider authored an e-mail examining what this executive privately admitted is the Marriott family’s rather strange views on, and application of, morality.
The text of the email was made available to me from a source wishing to remain anonymous who knows the executive personally.
Here is the Marriott insider’s view of the Marriott Corporation history of providing pornography in its hotel rooms (along with, ironically enough, copies of the Book of Mormon).
The email in question was penned in the context of the Marriott family’s seemingly conflicted moral stands on other issues, such as alcohol/caffeine consumption.
The long-time Marriott executive concluded that the Marriott family embrace of hotel room porn is based strictly on business considerations:
“You know this [providing of pornography] has been an issue with various interest groups with Marriott hotels since I can remember . . . . I know the idea is to make what some people consider unethical, morally reprehensible or plain unhealthy, more difficult to obtain so behavior will change. From pornography to smoking to guns.
“The Marriotts are an interesting family. [There was] an event at their home several years ago and they did not serve alcohol or caffeine. I think they are personally strong in their faith and beliefs but are business people nevertheless, and make business decisions. Do you know that there isn't a Marriott-owned hotel that has a casino in it? . . .
“Now if they ma[k]e [their guests] go to the front desk for [their] porn, I [will] not enjoy my business trips as much. :)”
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When it comes to the Mormon Marriott's selective application of family values, this is nothing new.
Back in the 1980s, I had a telling conversation with a promiment Utah Mormon politician who let slip in a rather bizarre phone call to me his "just-between-you-and-me" attitude toward the Marriott Hotels open promotion of pornography to their overnight guests in (of all places) Zion.
That politician was former Utah Attorney General David L. Wilkinson, son of the former, now-dead head of BYU, Ernest L. Wilkinson.
The younger Wilkinson, who I did not know and had never heard from before, telephoned me out of the blue one day to congratulate me on an editorial cartoon that I had done criticizing cable pornography (drawn back in my straight-laced, conservative Mormon days). The cartoon had been published in Salt Lake City's Mormon-owned newspaper, the "Deseret News," prompting Wilkinson's phone call of praise, support and political glad-handing.
During our conversation, Wilkinson went to great lengths to enthusiastically inform me of his plans for purging Utah of the scourge of cable TV porn. At the time, Wilkinson was running for election and concentrating lots of campaign time on his sacred vow to clean up the state's cable TV industry for, and in behalf of, Utah's families.
As Utah's Mormon-owned attorney general, Wilkinson eventually became embroiled in some highly-publicized anti-cable porn lawsuits (including "Community Television, Inc. of Utah v. Wilkinson" and "Home Box Office, Inc. v. Wilkinson").
With Wilkinson's support, the Utah State Legislature also passed the Cable Television Programming Decency Act. Such high-handed, moralistic efforts to dictate, regulate and formulate cable TV content against the wishes of adult consumers were eventually struck down by the federal courts for, among other reasons, being overly broad, as well as for unconstitutionallly targeting viewing audiences in homes and other environments in which there happened to be no children.
Oh well, as they say, facts can be inconvenient things.
During Wilkinson's unsolicited phone call to me, he also tried to elicit my support in his cable-cleansing efforts.
Wilkinson's missionary zeal to baptize the airwaves for the remission of their transmission sins raised a question in my mind.
I wanted to know his position regarding the availability of printed pornography in Utah.
So I asked him what he planned to do in combating those "soft porn" magazines which the Mormon-owned Marriott Hotel chain made available to paying patrons in its gift shops.
Wilkinson's response was swift and blunt.
He said he would not be going after the Marriotts for porn-pedaling "because they give so much money to the Church."
We all know, of course, what Church Brother Wilkinson was referring to.
Apparently for Wilkinson, while wickedness never is happiness, porn-produced profits are.
Yes, indeed.
Marriotts, Mormons, money, movies and morality. Obviously, a very conveniently mixed mix.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2012 05:58PM by steve benson.