Catholic Professor Calls On Hotel Chains to Remove Access to Pornography from Rooms
Princeton University jurisprudence professor Robert P. George is calling on the CEOs of the five largest hotel chains to remove access to pornography from their hotel rooms.
In his appeal, George, who is Catholic, is asking the CEOs to consider the harm that pornography does to everybody concerned, including those who produce it, those who view it, and the marriages and families into which it enters, the Catholic News Agency reports.
“Pornography is part of a larger phenomenon that’s rooted in the fundamental misunderstanding of sexuality,” he told CNA in a recent interview.
George recently teamed up with Islamic scholar Shaykh Hamza Yusuf in writing letters to the CEOs of the five largest hotel chains that offer pornography in their hotel rooms. He said the effort was an attempt to “re-stigmatize” pornography, which has been presented to the public as at worst “a kind of harmless naughtiness” with no lasting personal or social effects.
Rather than threatening a boycott or protest, George said, the letter simply presents a moral appeal to the collective consciences of the CEOs, respectfully asking them to regard the women involved in pornography as their beloved daughters and wives.
It reminds respectable businesspeople that there are some things that are degrading and dehumanizing and therefore wrong even if they are legal and profitable, he said.
“We are old-fashioned enough to believe that an appeal to conscience will sometimes do the job, that everything’s not about money,” he said. “We think people are still reachable.”
