How Marriott’s Owner Put Aside His Mormon Beliefs to Cash in on the LGBT Travel Market - Quartz
Not all CEOs who are devoutly religious impose their beliefs on workers and customers. Take the CEO of Marriott hotels, for example.
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.”
More: How Marriott’s Owner Put Aside His Mormon Beliefs to Cash in on the LGBT Travel Market - Quartz
Still, if you want to rent adult videos on pay-per-veiw, you’ll be out of luck. The hotel chain pulled the porn channels because most of their guests were getting videos delivered to their own personal devices. It was a business decision.