Posted on 06/27/2014 9:33:37 AM PDT by Colofornian
Marriott International launched its #LoveTravels marketing campaign on June 2, targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender customers—as well as pro-LGBT consumers—with a campaign designed to “convey the company’s commitment to make everyone feel comfortable being who they are.”
The campaign already has its own dedicated website (two of them, actually); hotel-mounted billboards in Washington DC; and is spreading in social and LGBT media. Shot by the photographer Braden Summers, it features the recently out-of-the-closet basketball player Jason Collins and the transgender model Geena Rocero, and invites people to share their stories of travel on social media with the hashtag #LoveTravels. The campaign is timed to attract attention at LGBT Pride celebrations in New York, Washington and San Francisco.
This is just the latest pro-LGBT move by Marriott’s executive director, Bill Marriott, a visible, lifelong Mormon who has professed faith in his church’s teachings—including traditional marriage.
The son of the chain’s founder, J. Willard Marriott (the man that former Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, whose given name is Willard, was named for), Bill Marriott is not a newcomer to the LGBT rights movement. In fact, he has been a quiet supporter of LGBT rights for more than 25 years. Marriott International began offering benefits for same-sex domestic partners of their American employees in the late 1990s. Since 2007, Marriott has consistently earned high ratings from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a leading American LGBT watchdog organization, and the hotel chain joined HRC’s coalition of businesses opposing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages until it was overturned in 2013 by the Supreme Court. Marriott opposed California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. And a Marriott hotel in Chicago even hosted the “International Mr. Leather Competition,” a leather fetish pageant, in 2012.
When the media questioned Bill Marriott about how he reconciles this stance with his faith, in 2008, Bill Marriott released a statement explaining: “The Bible that I love teaches me about honesty, integrity and unconditional love for all people,” he said then. “But beyond that, I am very careful about separating my personal faith and beliefs from how we run our business.”
Be that as it may, Marriott’s Mormon faith (and politics) may have factored into the chain’s 2011 decision to remove pay-per-view pornography from the chain’s in-room TV systems. Marriott’s phase-out of porn following a long stint of pressure from Christian organizations was seen as connected to Romney’s presidential campaign (since Romney had been an on-and-off board member and Marriott hotel porn was a thorn in Romney’s side in 2008). But ultimately, the chain attributed the move to the hotels’ inability to compete with adult entertainment on guests’ devices—a claim supported by hospitality market research showing a dip in revenue for in-room pornography.
Why is Bill Marriott so careful to separate faith and business when it comes to LGBT consumers? In a nutshell, $202 billion.
That’s how big the global LGBT travel market is predicted to be this year, up from $181 billion in 2013, according to industry analysts Out Now Global—with LGBT spending comprising 13% of all global travel spending. That 11% rise is more than double (pdf) the increase in world travel spending overall, which is expected to rise 4% to 5% this year. The number of US 18- to 34-year-olds self-identifying as LGBT has risen by more than 60% since 2007 (a 26% increase among all Americans), and married gay men spend 11% more on “nonessential purchases” than their heterosexual counterparts.
RINOmney is on the Board at Marriott. No doubt he approved and cashed his gay and porn checks.
The Mormons are very happy letting them taking over the Boy Scouts
Yup. Agreed.
Oh this is too funny....which evidences his beliefs go no further than being a member in the mormon organization... No different then someone belonging to any other organization that tacks on religion to make it palatable to those without true faith. We're going to see more and more unbelievers within so called churches ahead....religion sells to the masses regardless of it masquerading as something it is not.
Does Marriott’s offer a torture chamber for the
bondage & leather crowd?
Well, I'm sure their room-designers and marketers could have a CRACK at it!
....”Their long view is that it just gives him more money to tithe”.....
I believe it’s the entire picture for the Mormon Leadership ....to maintain the revenues and increase them by whatever means and source. They are also big in Globalization and that agenda...I suspect they will be one of the revenue sources sought after when the One World Governance is in full operation.....ALL large churches, and those who call themselves that, will be sought for their constant flow of revenue.
Profits trump Prophets.
Whores will do anything for money.
How very queer.
The article says he’s been extending same sex partners benefits for 25 years. Not a new “gay friendly” corporation.
With some "prophets," it's all one in the same!
(Joseph Smith was arrested in the 1820s for "glass looking" -- a 19th century term for treasure-seekers who would defraud others in the process...Smith made more of a lifestyle that was underwrote by his supporters from 'religion' than he ever did 'treasure-seeking'/glass-looking)
Smith ran a sizeable rooming house and had a larger house built for him (with his own private bar...see Mormon Truth!! October 8, 2005 log re: account from Joseph Smith's own son).
By April 11, 1844, he had himself pronounced "King" [On April 11, at a meeting of the Fifty, Joseph was secretly “chosen as our Prophet, Priest and King by Hosannas.” The Council performed an ordinance “in which Joseph suffered himself to be ordained a king, to reign over the house of Israel forever.” -- Citizen Smith]...
...and he was running for President of the United States!
he said then. “But beyond that, I am very careful about separating my personal faith and beliefs from how we run our business.”
________________________________________
but the LORD Jesus Christ of the Christian Bible said that we were to run our business along side our faith in God and Christianity...
To further make His point the LORD Jesus Christ overturned the tables of the Mormon businesses err the money changers oh that’s the same thing...
see again how different Mormonism is to Christianity..
Gee, a whole year and a half ago...THAT ought to satisfy St. Peter at the Gate...OH WAIT! Mariott only has to "get past Joseph Smith"! That's OK then!
"No man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith...every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are...[Joseph Smith] reigns there as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and calling, as God does in heaven. Many will exclaim—"Oh, that is very disagreeable! It is preposterous! We cannot bear the thought!" But it is true." -Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p.289-91
...Got that right!
I wonder which God will see as the lesser sin....Kate Kelly fighting for equality in the mormon church, or Marriott distributing filth for 24 years.
The mormon leaders have made THEIR choice!
Motto of the mormon church!
Are you sure Obama isn't secretly a mormon elder?
According to Fawn Brodie, it wasn't a private bar. Quite the opposite, Joseph turned his mansion in Nauvoo into a public saloon for a short time. Emma returned from an out-of-town trip and was appalled to find the enterprise in high gear in the downstairs rooms of her house. She ordered the tavern closed immediately on the grounds that it was no way for a prophet to act. Joseph protested that the liquor sales were bringing in more money than anything else he had ever done. Emma stood firm and then threatened to move out with the children, presumably to Joseph's nearby hotel. Faced with the loss of both his family and extended family, Joseph relented.
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