A British Hotel Replaced The Bible With '50 Shades Of Grey'

Ugh. I'm so annoyed that this news falls under today's That-Ish-Cray Of The Day! Because otherwise the sub-heading was totally going to be "The British Are Coming." Which is so much funnier than "That-Ish-Cray Of The Day"! But I gotta follow protocol, even when I have the greatest pun/overtly sexual American Revolutionary War reference ever. Speaking of Americans, apparently a lot of them are pissed off at The Damson Dene Hotel in England. This hotel's owner committed the blasphemy to end all blasphemies when he decided to replace hotel nightstand staple The Gideon Bible, with that new ish, 50 Shades Of Grey. Deets inside!

Death And Taxes (I know, the second coolest name for a blog ever) has the story:
The Damson Dene Hotel in England caused a ruckus last weekend by announcing they were replacing The Bible with "50 Shades of Grey" in 40 of their hotel rooms.
The Damson Dene's owner Jonathan Denby, who purchased the hotel 10 years ago from a methodist group, told NBC he found religious books a "wholly inappropriate" choice for private bedrooms in England's modern, secular society. While his first instinct was to replace the Gideon bibles with copies of "Atlas Shrugged," Denby decided to settle on "50 Shades of Grey," the wildly popular, romance novel, known for its explicit sex scenes of bondage and sadomasochism.
Naturally, religious folks aren't pleased. The local vicar publicly disapproves, but Denby insists most of the disapproval is from across the pond.
"People in the States feel much more strongly," he said. "We've had quite a few e-mails quoting the scriptures to us and suggesting that it would be a good thing to put the Bible back."
Now, the switch makes sense to me in a lot of obvious ways. I always thought that the Bible/hotel mash-up was kind of odd, so maybe E L James's so-called mommy porn has a right to that spot.
However, this is only a big deal if you assume that The Bible and 50 Shades Of Grey are polar opposites. As for me, I don't really believe in polar opposites (thank you very much, literary theory and deconstruction); and I've read enough of The Bible (though regrettably, not 50 Shades... yet... but I totally have it and can't wait to dive in) to know that it's as raunchy and intense as the next bestseller. People spend most of their lives (and their time in hotels) looking for two things: 1.) sex, and 2.) redemption. Believe it or not, The Bible provides both (see Song of Solomon for some of the sex bits)! But okay, 50 Shades Of Grey wins this round, lol.

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The Damson Dene For The Win!

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What do you guys think of the trade-off? And more importantly- what great work of literature would YOU put in your swanky hotel? I'd probably use that 8-year old girl's mini-essay on ...

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