Travel firms cut ties with online Christian organization

Six major travel companies have now severed links with a religious organization that helps online shoppers to donate to charities, including antigay groups.

A report in the Pink Paper says that among the charities and other organizations that the Christian Values Network (CVN), a link referral service, encourages donations to are the antigay American groups Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. But an online petition campaign reinforced by thousands of handwritten letters has persuaded several major companies to opt out. Sandals Resorts had already opted out of the scheme, says the Pink Paper, along with Westin Hotel Group, Radisson, and Country Inns and Hotels.com. Now Expedia.com and Avis car rentals have joined them. Petitions on both Change.org and AllOut.org “piled the pressure on leisure companies to disassociate themselves from the CVN – and it worked,” says Peter Lloyd, author of the story. It quotes AllOut cofounder Andre Banks as saying: “In a tight economy, summer travellers will be very careful where to spend their hard-earned dollars. They may think twice if they know that these companies are supporting bigotry.” Strict religious groups Recently, BBC America discovered it was accidentally encouraging donations to the antigay groups through the website, but it severed its links. “The broadcasters were linked to online bookstore Christian Values Network – co-owned by Lindsay Lohan’s father – which donated cash to various strict religious groups, including several which are alleged to be homophobic,” said the Pink Paper in a July 2011 story, again written by Peter Lloyd. Amy Mulcair, vice president publicity at BBC Worldwide Americas, was quoted as saying: “BBC America Shop was not aware of CVN.org’s current donation policies.” The same story also reports that Microsoft was the first company to pull out of the scheme. “The Seattle-based gay-friendly giant severed its relationship with Christian Values Network at the end of last week” (w/e July 9). This was also reported at the time on WinRumors.com, the site that deals with news and rumours concerning Microsoft. The alarm was raised by Stuart Wilber, a Microsoft customer and Seattle resident, about “several organizations included on CVN’s service that appear to support discrimination,” says WinRumors.com, which continues: “Wilber revealed that the Southern Poverty Law Center has declared the following organizations as known ‘hate groups,’ for their ‘blatant and repeated homophobic lies about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people’.” The report then lists Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Summit Ministries, and Abiding Truth Ministries.