Posted: November 11, 2008 4:17:19 PM
As many of you may know I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some might conclude given my family's membership in the Mormon Church that our company supported the recent ballot initiative to ban same sex marriage in California. This is simply untrue. Marriott International is a public company headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and is not controlled by any one individual or family. Neither I, nor the company, contributed to the campaign to pass Proposition 8.Marriott is definitely "on the move" ... it's now moving to put as much distance between itself and the Mormon church's toxic Prop 8 victory as it possibly can.
The Bible that I love teaches me about honesty, integrity and unconditional love for all people. But beyond that, I am very careful about separating my personal faith and beliefs from how we run our business.
I am personally motivated to speak now because Marriott was built on the basic principles of respect and inclusion. My father, who founded this company along with my mother, told everyone who would listen: "Take care of your employees, and they'll take care of your customers, who will come back again and again."
For more than 80 years, our company has grown and changed, but that basic principle still holds up. We embrace all people as our customers, associates, owners and franchisees regardless of race, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation.
Our principle is backed up with a formal diversity program, which we established more than 20 years ago. Our Board of Directors has also focused on this priority and helped us be a leader and a better company. We were among the first in our industry to offer domestic partner benefits, and we've earned a perfect 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index for two years in a row. Many of our hotels have hosted LGBT community functions and events for years.
I am very proud of all of our associates at Marriott. And I want all our associates and guests, whom we welcome into our hotels, to know that we embrace your talents and thank you for your many contributions and your business.
I'm Bill Marriott, and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the Move.
Sandy Bertha, of Olivenhain, CA, daughter of Bill’s brother, Richard Marriott (Chairman of the board for Host Hotels & Resorts), donated $25,000. Host Hotels is no longer one of Bill's companies, but when he speaks on this issue, he’s also speaking as someone who counts family members as major donors to Prop 8.
He's also speaking as someone who has funded and promoted a church
that has pursued a decades-long strategy of thwarting marriage equality:
Resigning for Something: Mormon No More ...
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5 comments:
I don't like the fact that he puts M*rm*n "bibles" in every hotel room. (For the record, I don't like the Christian ones in the room either! Why can't they have a Tanach)?)
You may remember this SCOTUS case from 2000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Independent_School_Dist._v._Doe
Seems like Mormons and Catholics sued to protect their minority rights. They didn't want the school to conduct prayers that weren't in their religious tradition.
And they went to the SUPREME COURT when the state failed them.
Hmmm....
Re: Santa Fe vs Doe. When reading about the case I got this explanation:
The Mormon family was upset when their daughter's junior high school teacher passed out fliers for a Baptist revival. When the girl asked a question about the revival, the teacher asked her what her religion was. On learning that the girl was Mormon, she said that Mormonism was a "non-Christian cult."
So they went to the Supreme Court to protect themselves against the Majority's religious beliefs. And the Mormon press backed them. (But they all had to carefully explain the issue in these terms.)
Now that the "Equitable Marriage" community wants to do the same thing, they claim we're interfering with the will of the public.
Tsk tsk tsk.
I would expect that the more intelligent proponents of gay "marriage" might be able to sense the inevitable counter-mobilization underway, as the utterly rabid anti-Mormon hate bubbles over, and spreads like poison into the (inevitable) subsequent hatred of all religion, which is the True Face, alas, of the gay "marriage" movement.
Slow train comin', folks.
I hope you tone it down, cuz if you don't, there will be terrible times ahead.
Well, as you see from the post above, Rick, it's MORMONS who sue to keep prayer out of school. (Sante Fe vs Doe)
And, I am an extremely religious person. When you can read the Bible in Hebrew, come back and talk to be about religion
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