Last weekend, the Marriott in Bethesda was planning on hosting a convention funded by the Iranian government titled the "Twenty Sixth Anniversary of the victory of the glorious Islamic Revolution and Death To America Day." It was only after an Iranian dissident group caught wind of it and alerted Marriott that the event was shut down. Somehow Marriott's management was either unaware of the theme of the event or knew about it and was going to let it go on anyway.
The event, put on to celebrate the 26th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, highlights how archaic and dated the Iranian regime is, and it is encouraging to see that the Iranian dissident group caught it and let Marriott know.
However, Marriott should have caught the outrageousness of the event itself and put a stop to it. America has no diplomatic relations with the Iranian government, and the hotel should not have done business with it to begin with. It's not an issue of restricting free speech in America, but it is an issue of not working with a government that is an enemy of the United States. Marriott should have known better.
