First Liberty, a religious freedom firm, sent a letter Monday to Sonesta Nashville Airport Hotel, imploring the venue to “fulfill its contractual obligation to HaYovel, a Christian ministry that was scheduled to hold a summit supporting Israel at the hotel next week,” according to a press release.
The firm’s attorneys, who accused the hotel of breaching “its contractual obligation,” decried the alleged actions and lambasted the hotel for purportedly canceling The Israel Summit, a conference for pro-Israel supporters who believe the nation has a right to the Holy Land where it currently resides.
Luke Hilton, director of marketing for HaYovel — a group bringing volunteers to Israel to help support the Jewish state — told CBN News he received a call just 10 days before the event, which is set to unfold May 20-22, 2024, telling him the hotel was no longer willing to host.
“They decided to cancel our contract due to pressure that they’d received from pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas groups, making phone calls,” he said, noting the hotel cited safety concerns in making the decision. “It’s complete shock to us and, obviously, very last minute.”
Hilton said HaYovel pledged to help provide increased security for the event and to do “whatever was needed to make sure everyone was safe.” But the hotel reportedly wasn’t persuaded by these offers.
First Liberty has pleaded with Sonesta to reverse its decision. Hiram Sasser, the law firm’s executive general counsel, told CBN News he is concerned about several matters surrounding the cancellation.
“There’s obviously a contract dispute issue,” he said. “But, more importantly, there’s a federal law, The Civil Rights Act Title II. The Civil Rights Act prohibits places of public accommodation from discriminating based upon religion and other things as well.”
Sasser continued, “In this case, what you have is, you have these agitators and protesters who are anti-Semitic and they do not want this group to be able to support the Jewish people or to support Israel, because of the religion of the people that they are trying to support. That’s their motivation.”
He believes the hotel potentially giving into that pressure could cross some lines when it comes to Title II, but the issues, he said, stretch beyond federal consideration.
“There’s also a Tennessee state law that’s sort of the equivalent of that they’re also in violation of,” Sasser said.
In the end, the attorney said people and institutions shouldn’t be in the habit of shutting down simply because “there’s some heckler who comes along and wants to do a heckler’s veto, which is basically, they’ll complain enough in order to try to create trouble to shut down” an event.
“That’s not how our country’s supposed to operate,” Sasser said.
First Liberty detailed these concerns and others in a letter addressed to the hotel on behalf of HaYovel, The firm wrote the hotel’s cancellation was not only a breach of contract, but also “unlawful religious discrimination in a place of public accommodation in violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000a, and the Tennessee Human Rights Act, Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-21-501 (the ‘THRA’).”
No comments:
Post a Comment