Campaigns to boycott companies, places or organizations have a long history in this country and elsewhere. The causes they support and the results they bring about are a decidedly mixed bag.
American colonists boycotted the purchase of British products to protest what they considered unfair taxation by the mother country. In 1773, a campaign to boycott tea specifically became pointless after men boarded British ships in Boston harbor and threw the tea overboard, in what became known as the Boston Tea Party.
The modern civil rights movement was launched by African-Americans refusing to patronize buses with segregated seating in Baton Rouge, La., and Montgomery, Ala. Most of the passengers were black, so their boycott caused economic hardship for the bus operators. Most of their demands were eventually met.
Freedom to not buy
More recently, the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores became the target of a boycott after it challenged the Affordable Care Act mandate that employer-provided insurance cover birth control without a co-pay. The owners argued that the birth control requirement went counter to their religious views, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor.
For me, an occasional home sewer, the Hobby Lobby owners’ personal views on birth control were a matter of indifference. But their singling out of this basic medical need for women was not. I haven’t stepped foot in their stores since.
Some boycotts are ridiculous. From the left, you have the boycott of New Balance sneakers because of a misunderstood remark by a company executive supporting an aspect of Donald Trump’s trade agenda (to the extent anyone understands it).
On the right, you have the annual boycott of Starbucks over its decision to make its holiday cups less Christmassy than some want. This year, Trump chimed in: “Maybe we should boycott Starbucks.”
Obviously, there are effective boycotts and ineffective ones, stupid boycotts and well-directed ones, boycotts by the right, left and middle. The point here is that for whatever reason, a person has a right to withhold his or her custom. Freedom of speech doesn’t end at the cash register.
