Marriott International claims to support the LGBTQ community and celebrate Pride Month, but the hotel chain is hosting a national conference for Moms for Liberty, an overtly anti-LGBTQ organization known for strategically harassing public school employees and advocating for school book bans.
Marriott has vocally celebrated Pride Month for years, even launching a “Love Travels” campaign in support of organizations and individuals advocating for inclusion and equity.
Despite Marriott’s open LGBTQ support, Moms for Liberty will hold its national summit at a Marriott hotel in Tampa, Florida, next month, with a speaker lineup packed with anti-LGBTQ figures. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — who recently signed the state's “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law — will headline the conference, appearing along with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), author of a manifesto that denies the existence of trans people, and anti-LGBTQ conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey.
Moms for Liberty spouts overt hate against the LGBTQ community, regularly targeting trans individuals. The group’s official Twitter page quoted an article in March claiming that The Trevor Project — the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth — “is actively grooming children into a trans identity.” As recently as June 13, Moms for Liberty described the increase of young people identifying as trans as a “transgender contagion” and encourage parents to “fight” it.
The organization has advocated for the removal of select books with LGBTQ themes, describing the basis for removal as “sexually explicit” content — all while partnering with transphobic publishers to place right-wing propaganda in public school libraries. One chapter even filed a public records request asking for a list of “LGBTQ” book titles from the school library.
Marriott is allowing a clearly anti-LGBTQ organization to use its facilities to continue spreading hate — and is subsequently profiting from that hate.