Marriott ends in-room porn, some suggest because of Romney

The hotel chain Marriott has decided it will no longer offer pornographic movies in to its guests, a move some suggest could be aimed at helping the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Romney resigned from the company’s board of directors earlier this month. In 2007, during his unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, many social conservatives in Iowa denounced Marriott, and in turn Romney, for making a substantial amount of money playing pornography in its hotel rooms. Ben Smith of Politico reports that hotel chains make about $175 per room annually on pornography.

Kim Lehman, one of Iowa’s members of the Republican National Committee, told The Iowa Independent in June 2007 that serving on the board of a hotel that makes so much money off of pornography while campaigning on family values would make Romney a “hypocrite.”

Politico’s Smith reports that he’s yet to hear from a Marriott spokesperson about whether the change has anything to do with Romney’s candidacy. From Politico:

Another person familiar with the workings of the industry, though, cast doubt on the connection: The in-room movie business has been hit hard by wifi, Netflix, iPads, and laptops, and the structure of contracts with providers could well have made it a solid economic decision.