George Clooney Calls for Hotel Boycott Due to Brunei Anti-LGBTQ Laws

George Clooney is taking a stand for LGBTQ rights after the country of Brunei announced homosexuality would be punishable by death beginning next month.

Nine exclusive hotels throughout the world are owned by the Sultan of Brunei’s Investment Agency, with two of them, The Bel-Air and The Beverly Hills Hotel, being Los Angeles staples.

Now, Clooney is calling for a boycott of all of them.

“Every single time we stay at or take meetings at or dine at any of these nine hotels we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery,” he wrote in a piece for Deadline.

It’s not the first time the hotels have been boycotted by Hollywood, a fact that Clooney himself points out.

Several years ago, strategic boycotts were organized of the LA hotels, and included cancelling a number of long-standing events.

“But like all good intentions when the white heat of outrage moves on to the hundred other reasons to be outraged, the focus dies down and slowly these hotels get back to the business of business,” he said.

Though the punishment of being stoned to death is a change for Brunei, homosexuality was already illegal there and could result in a prison sentence. The country also adopted sharia law, an Islamic based legal system reliant on corporal punishments, in 2014, which set the stage for the new anti-LGBTQ sanctions.

The law is set to go into effect on April 3, and it’s unlikely any boycott in America or elsewhere will result in that changing.

“But are we really going to help pay for these human rights violations?” Clooney insists. “Are we really going to help fund the murder of innocent citizens?"

The full list of hotels can be found here.