Huffington Post does victory lap as Hyatt Hotels says it will stop hosting groups that oppose jihad terror
Oct 5, 2018 2:20 pm By Robert Spencer 50 Comments
“HuffPost was the first to report on the Hyatt Regency’s decision to host Act for America, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a h**e group,” and now the Huffington Post’s veteran pro-jihad smear merchant, Christopher Mathias, is spiking the football, as the Hyatt Hotel chain has announced that it will no longer host groups that oppose jihad terror.
Now wait a minute, Spencer, you’ll say. Hyatt said they were going to stop hosting “h**e groups,” not “groups that oppose jihad terror.”
Indeed. But why has the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated Act for America (as well as Jihad Watch and other groups that oppose jihad terror) a “h**e group”? Mathias sums it up with his usual vicious arrogance and tendentiousness: “Although it bills itself as the ‘NRA of national security,’ it mainly focuses on vilifying Muslims, spreading baseless conspiracy theories and lobbying legislators to pass discriminatory laws.” Mathias actually gives some examples of “vilifying Muslims,” which we will examine. “Spreading baseless conspiracy theories” likely refers to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Explanatory Memorandum, which lays out its plan for “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.” See how much of a “baseless conspiracy theory” that is here. “Discriminatory laws” refers to anti-Sharia laws, but since Sharia denies the e******y of rights of women and non-Muslims, it would be more accurate to say that Act is opposing, rather than lobbying for, discriminatory laws.
The fact is that Act, and Jihad Watch, and the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the Center for Security Policy are on the SPLC’s “h**e group” list for opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression. The proof of this is the fact that there is no significant group that opposes jihad terror that isn’t on the SPLC’s list: in other words, they don’t identify some supposedly reasonable response to the jihad threat, and then claim that Act and AFDI and Jihad Watch et al have gone beyond reasonable bounds. Instead, they stigmatize and demonize anyone and everyone who dares mount the slightest and most tepid opposition to the global jihad as a “h**e group” and as “anti-Muslim,” another smear — was it “anti-German” to oppose the N**is? And there are, meanwhile, no Islamic jihad groups on the SPLC’s h**e group list, no terror-tied Islamic charities, nothing.
Mathias claims that “Brigitte Gabriel, Act for America’s founder, has repeatedly made bigoted comments about Muslims. She has stated, incorrectly, that ‘practicing Muslims, who believe in the teachings of the Quran, cannot be loyal citizens of the United States of America.'”
“Incorrectly,” the imam Mathias assures us. But on what basis he does not say. The Qur’an says to beat a disobedient woman (4:34), that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man (2:282), to be ruthless to unbelievers (48:29), to behead unbelievers (47:4), and to make war against “the People of the Book” (i.e., Jews and Christians, and a few other groups) until they pay a special tax and submit to Islamic hegemony (9:29). There is much more, but even on the basis of those passages, there is a problem between the Qur’an and the Constitution. Mathias and his cohorts have never addressed this; instead, they’ve waved away those who point it out, defaming them as “Islamophobic.”
Mathias also claims that Gabriel “has said that Muslims are a ‘natural threat to civilized people of the world, particularly Western society.’” I very seriously doubt that Gabriel said this of all Muslims; that is almost certainly Mathias’ vicious misrepresentation. Meanwhile, would he himself deny that jihadis are a threat to civilized people? He is so clueless and c*********d that maybe he would.
Ultimately, the SPLC/Mathias characterization of Act for America, as well as others that the SPLC smears as “h**e groups,” is a matter of opinion, not of objective fact. Should Hyatt Hotels or any other business really be denying service to any group based on the judgment of a private organization about that group? The SPLC is anything but an objective or unbiased source. Imagine how Mathias and the HuffPo would howl if the Hyatt chain started refusing to host groups based on the evaluation of, say, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, or the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The willingness of corporations to validate the SPLC and treat it as if it were a reliable arbiter of what constitutes a “h**e group” and what doesn’t is short-sighted and unwise, and sets a dangerous precedent: if your group, or the favorite charity of Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian, ends up on the SPLC’s list tomorrow, you’ll see what I mean.
As an Armenian, Hoplamazian should be ashamed of himself for caving to this pro-jihad intimidation, and setting this dangerous precedent, which will lead ultimately to the denial of hotel accommodations to all those whose political opinions are deemed unacceptable. That’s the kind of thing that happens in totalitarian states. And thanks to Mark Hoplamazian, Christopher Mathias, the Huffington Post, and above all the Southern Poverty Law Center, we’re well on the way there.
I’m sure Hoplamazian and the Hyatt brass will be glad to hear that I will never stay at a Hyatt again as long as this totalitarian policy is in place, and will recommend to everyone I know that they should boycott the Hyatt chain. They don’t want people who have been smeared by the SPLC around? That’s easy to arrange.
“Hyatt Hotels To Stop Hosting H**e Groups, CEO Says,” by Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, October 2, 2018:
Weeks after a Hyatt hotel in Virginia hosted the annual conference of an anti-Muslim organization, the CEO of Hyatt Hotels Corporation has announced that the hotel chain will no longer rent space to h**e groups.
“If a group is primarily focused on disparaging a group by virtue of their identity… that’s really where we need to draw the line,” Mark Hoplamazian told an audience at a travel industry conference in New York on Sept. 27. “We’re going to apply our values to making these decisions along the way.”…
“On the heels of some guest and colleague feedback we received about groups, we decided it was the right time to take a fresh look at our practices around h**e groups,” a Hyatt spokesperson said in a statement. “This is a complex and emotional issue, but what we’ve concluded is that we need to commit to a higher level of vetting such that groups using h**e speech, primarily seeking to disparage or demean a particular group, are not welcome in our hotels.”
On Sept. 4 and 5, the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, Virginia, hosted the annual conference of the anti-Muslim h**e group Act for America.
HuffPost was the first to report on the Hyatt Regency’s decision to host Act for America, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a h**e group. A spokesperson for that hotel told HuffPost at the time that it would “not unlawfully discriminate against groups who wish to hold lawful meetings at the hotel.”
But the civil rights group Muslim Advocates argued that Hyatt would be breaking no laws by refusing to host Act for America, and pointed to other hospitality companies ― including Hilton, Airbnb, Sofitel (owned by AccorHotels) and the Willard Hotel (owned by IHG) ― that have declined to host w***e s*********t groups.
Muslim Advocates launched a petition calling on Hyatt Hotels Corp. to cancel on Act for America. The hotel company declined to do so, and the conference went ahead as scheduled.
Act for America claims a (likely exaggerated) membership of 750,000 people. Although it bills itself as the “NRA of national security,” it mainly focuses on vilifying Muslims, spreading baseless conspiracy theories and lobbying legislators to pass discriminatory laws.
Last year, the group held anti-Muslim protests across the country that attracted neo-N**is, w***e s*********ts and armed anti-government m*****a members.
Brigitte Gabriel, Act for America’s founder, has repeatedly made bigoted comments about Muslims. She has stated, incorrectly, that “practicing Muslims, who believe in the teachings of the Quran, cannot be loyal citizens of the United States of America.” She has said that Muslims are a “natural threat to civilized people of the world, particularly Western society.”…
The world is going insane
Huffington Post does victory lap as Hyatt Hotels s... (
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