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Organizers of an anti-Shariah conference in Nashville are demanding that the Hutton Hotel honor a contract to host it.
The Shariah Awareness Action Network had planned to hold a Preserving Freedom conference at the Hutton on Nov. 11.
On Monday, Hutton officials told leaders of the group, who include Lou Ann Zelenik of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition that the hotel would not honor the contract it signed with them in August.
Lawyers for the conference sent a letter to the hotel Wednesday, demanding that it reverse that decision.
?I write to demand that you immediately reverse this decision to prevent irreparable harm to the sponsors, participants and attendees of the conference, consisting of the loss of the conference location and the attendant damages you have caused these individuals and groups,? wrote Mathew Staver, founder of the Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal group that is one of the conference sponsors.
Hotel explains move
Steve Eckley, senior vice president of hotels for Amerimar Enterprises, which owns the Hutton, said he?d canceled the event after learning it might attract protests.
Amerimar issued a statement Tuesday, defending that decision.
?Our judgment was that the conference had the potential to disrupt the safe, secure and positive experience that our guests demand, and our associates deserve,? the statement read.
Staver accused Hutton management of violating the free speech rights of conference organizers and of giving in to radical Islam.
If the conference was spawning safety issues, hotel management should have called the police, Staver said.
?If you truly have received serious threats of violence to legitimate First Amendment expression, you have an obligation to report it to the government, not act in concert with the demands of radical Islam,? he wrote in the letter.
The letter gives the hotel until today to respond or face possible legal action.
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