The Threatened AALS Boycott

According to this article, several law professor groups are threatening to boycott AALS events held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, because the hotel's owner contributed $125,000 to an initiative to ban same-sex marriage in California.

On the one hand, I am a supporter of same sex marriage.  On the other hand, it's not entirely clear to me when it's appropriate to boycott a business because I disagree strongly with the political position of its owner.  When does a belief become so repugnant so as to warrant a boycott?  For example, if I believe in abortion rights (I do), should I boycott a business because its owner contributed money to an antiabortion group?  (For example, should I have boycotted Domino's Pizza in the 1990's because its primary shareholder at that time contributed to such causes?) 

Consider two other examples.  Imagine a boycott of a business by Democrats because the owner contributes to the Republican Party.  Such a boycott, in my view, would be quite undesirable.  People, including business owners, should be allowed to contribute to major political parties without fear of financial reprisals.  But what if the owner contributes to the American Nazi Party?  That seems different to me, and I would feel entirely comfortable boycotting that business.

So where does the AALS case fall?  In my view, it falls in between boycotting a business because of GOP contributions (a bad idea) and boycotting a business because of Nazi Party contributions (a good idea). 

My view is still tentative, but I think same sex marriage (as much as I support it) is still a very contentious issue over which reasonable minds disagree.  Given the nature of the issue, I don't feel comfortable boycotting a large business, because its owner contributed money to an initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in California. 

UPDATE:  Paul Caron has collected a wide range of blog commentary about this issue here.  Most of the posts appear to be against the boycott. 

Comments

[Jeff Lipshaw]

Andy, having already told you privately I have a jellyfish-like spine on this, maybe this is one place where the economists have it right. If I have to add the cost of investigating political positions on every purchase I make, I think everything gets a lot more expensive. Some people do in fact derive "utility" from that expenditure. More power to them! In most cases, I don't think I do. When deciding between GE, Amana, and Whirlpool on refrigerators, do I have to read their proxy statements to determine their positions on corporate governance? Do I make a comparison of the number of union shops (on that one, I would come out one way, and Matt Bodie the other)? Do I compare Starbucks and Seattle's Best versus Peet's on fair trade policy when all I want is a cup of coffee? Maybe, I guess.

In short, I agree with your intuitions here, both about the main issue (I too am generally libertarian on who wants to marry whom), and the exceptional one, like the Nazi supporter.

[Alan Childress]

Well, I don't buy the cost-of-information issue, since the internet moots that for any situation (like this) where the issue is already uncovered and widely disseminated. It just hits your inbox and only requires a choice. I think you still have to take a normative stand, and Andy's line-drawing is fine with me. I will go further and actually applaud the fact that the owner is using the democratic process to achieve his result. I am entirely comfortable with validating (and not just accepting) his process even while I would oppose his goal. And I hope some nice couple plans to have their wedding at his hotel, irking him.

I also think the call for boycott is counterproductive. It makes the owner an economic martyr and shifts the focus away from his viewpoint to whether that view is so abhorrent that it should engender this level of reaction. That reduces one's amenable support group considerably. There must be more effective ways to make the point.

[Alan Childress]

The article mentions people describing the hotel owner as "discrimination." Is there any evidence that he or the hotel has discriminated against gay couples trying to stay there or hold marriages there? I do not equate supporting a democratic initiative to "discriminating."

Also, should these groups not hold a meeting in any state that does not recognize gay marriage? That is a boon for a few states. But at least it targets an actual decision or non-decision with present discriminatory results. As I understand it, a gay marriage can legally be held in this Hyatt (and I have no evidence that it is discouraged by the owner) while it cannot be held in the Washington Marriott near the zoo that houses the AALS job interview process. So should interviewees boycott that? At least until its owner contributes money to changing the law in DC?

[John Steele]

[Editor's note: I wrote this without realizing that Alan Childress had made the same suggestion above.]

As I understand it, the California Republic allows same-sex non-Californians to marry there, and moreover just about anyone can perform the marriage ceremony so long as the paperwork is handled correctly. So if there is anyone in the AALS who'd like to get hitched in a same-sex marriage while in San Diego, why not have the ceremony at the hotel itself? It might be more memorable that most of the conference panels.

[Charles Kindregan]

As a stong supported of the right of same-sex couples to enjoy the legal benefits of marriage (as reflected in my various writings)I am concerned about the attempt of some zealots to incorporate traditional male-female marriage as the only option into the state (California) constitution. I am concerned about the size of the owner's contribution to that effort, but I also have trouble supporting a boycott which may harm others (other investors in the hotel, employees etc.). On the other hand we all have the right to use our dollars to support or oppose whatever..... By the way, I really like Alan's idea, and if the hotel were to refuse to host a same-sex marriage all reservations would disappear.

[Andrew Perlman]

Charley,

I agree with you. If the hotel were to discriminate against a same-sex couple who wanted to get married there, I'd feel entirely comfortable boycotting the hotel.

Andy

[Monroe Freedman]

Whether to dissociate oneself from a particular entity is such a personal, idiosyncratic (should I say "emotional" or "irrational") decision that it's simply not feasible to come up with a general rule for everyone.

For example, to this day I avoid buying Dow Chemical products because they made napalm during the Vietnam War. And I would not buy a German car, despite the fact that I harbor no animosity towards German individuals (and I do own a Japanese car).

Go figure.

[Andrew Perlman]

Monroe,

I think you're right that each person or group might have a different and entirely reasonable reaction. For example, it would seem reasonable to me for Lambda Legal Defense Fund to boycott the hotel if it had previously scheduled a gala there.

The question is whether the AALS should do so. In my view, the AALS is an umbrella organization that consists of many schools with members who hold a very wide range of beliefs. Opposition to same sex marriage, whether we like it or not, is still very much a mainstream political position. I also think that being opposed to same sex marriage does not necessarily make someone in favor of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. For example, I think someone could be opposed to same sex marriage and be very much in favor of expanding antidiscrimination laws to sexual orientation. So even though the AALS has a strong antidiscrimination stance, I don't think that stance is necessarily furthered in this particular instance given the contributions of this specific hotel owner.

I guess that's a long way of saying that boycotts have their place, but I'm not convinced that a boycott makes sense for this particular organization (the AALS) under these specific facts.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Monroe,

While what you say may be descriptively accurate (and I'm with you on Dow even though, inexplicably, we love our VW bug, despite the fact it probably owes its existence to Hitler's efforts to develop a car affordable to working people [I suppose one could at least say that not *everything* Hitler did was touched by evil]), it does not rule out the ethical value and thus desirability of formulating principles that help us determine whether or not a company or business should be subject to a formal or personal boycott (in a colonial context or in an authoritarian regime, one might extend a boycott to 'legal' and social institutions that maintain an iniquitous system). Of course this hardly means everyone will subscribe to such principles, but they can assist those persuaded by reasons on their behalf to get their ethical bearings and live by the light of their overarching ethical principles and values, not to mention their comprehensive doctrines or worldviews. Thus, for example, we might want to avoid purchasing products that are cheap simply because they're made in sweatshops or largely by child labor, or refrain from giving our business to companies notorious for union-busting practices or anti-unionization efforts in general. We might boycott multi-national corporations notorious for human rights violations, and so forth and so on. Now it is not easy to keep track of corporate practices these days, but there are NGOs that can help one (e.g., the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre: http://www.business-humanrights.org/Aboutus/Briefdescription), as well as publications like Multinational Monitor: http://multinationalmonitor.org/.

In short, I think we should not let this important subject suffer the fickle fortunes of idiosyncratic personal preferences.

With respect to the case at hand, I'm largely in agreement with Andy and Alan.

[John Steele]

Alan,

I hadn't read your comment all the way to the bottom (I'm actually at the shore having a hardshell crab feast and so please forgive my sloppy reading) and I should have acknowledged your suggestion before I made it myself. Great minds . . . and all that.

John Steele

[Alan Childress]

John, you have a level of webpoliteness that escapes me, as it never occurred to me that you were unmannered in your comment. The only rude thing about it was that it's funnier -- the reference to the panel presentations. I quoted that at Volokh while you were crabby.

I wish some couple(s) would actually do this, but seriously would they not run the risk that the law will have changed by January 09? Maybe the initiative is worded to have a later effective date, I don't know. I guess if I were serious about a wedding, though, I would plan to have it soon. Maybe get married now at city hall and share the ceremony with AALS friends in January at the welcoming manchester hyatt?

[Jarbas Machioni]

Tottally agree with you. I think that in a democratic society we must respect other points of view .
It's suppose that the hotel owner make the donation according to law, it was not illegal action.

A boycott in this case is totally antidemocratic.

[Monroe Freedman]

I don't understand objections based on the owner's democratic right of freedom of speech and lawful use of financial power. The boycotters are also lawfully using their financial power and exercising rights of speech and association.

[Anita Bernstein]

I'm with Monroe, on both the First Amendment and the bottom line. This boycott may not the searing issue of our day, but I would prefer not to spend money at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. The AALS, which has a long history of progressive thought and action on sexual orientation, would (or should) care about the owner's views.

For those who teach in law school, slightly O/T: When you are choosing casebooks for your courses, do you take into account the ideology of the editors, bearing in mind that you're sending revenue their way? When I mentioned this penchant of mine, a sales rep for one of the Big Three told me that as far as she can tell, only women share it.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

In the end, a boycott probably hurts the workers at the hotel far more than it does the owner. Does it help to change the owner's mind? Hardly. Does it make those boycotting the hotel feel holier than thou: most certainly. I think it might prove helpful to read what those who worked to develop the art and science of nonviolent activism had to say about such things. Gandhi, for instance, attempted to develop stringent criteria for resorting to a boycott. In the case of a boycott, for example, he "held that a nonviolent boycott is legitimate when when we are required to compromise with what we believe to be an untruth, but he felt that it would be a dangerous thing if we were to adopt *social* boycott when there are differences of opinion." Indeed, Gandhi averred that a "summary use of social boycott in order to bend a minority to the will of the majority is a species of unpardonable violence. [....] We may not make people pure by compulsion. Much less may we compel them by violence to respect our opinion [keep in mind here that Gandhi was not simply speaking to physical violence but, more importantly, violence of the heart and mind]. It is utterly against the spirit of democracy we want to cultivate.... [I]t would be wisdom to err on the right side and to exercise the weapon even in the limited sense...on rare and well-defined occasions." Again, a boycott is essentially a withdrawal of cooperation from an unjust social or economic institution or practice. How does that apply in this case? We might keep in mind that although such things as self-interest, prejudice and moral inertia can be the root causes of many conflicts, it also happens that "men of good-will" can take very different view of what human happiness and well-being consists in and thus it behooves us to realize that individual differences of belief and value may run so deep that there is no way to overcome or resolve them and, especially in the instant case, a boycott does nothing to promote concrete conditions of mutual trust, understanding and dialogue which, one thinks, would be prerequisites to any attempt to get the owner to change his views. Recall that where possible, a Gandhian satyagraha can "loosen up the moral and emotional rigidity of participants [in a conflict so as to create] a climate conducive to a relaxed and sympathetic dialogue." A boycott here assures the elimination of that probability or possibility! There is nothing in the economic practices and policies (e.g., unfair discriminatory practices) of the hotel that warrant a boycott and there are far more creative (and perhaps more effective) ways to communicate one's beliefs about the owner's political views (several of which were suggested above) while opening up the possibility for dialogue on those views.

[Alice C. Linsley]

"Marry" is not the correct term for civil partnerships. None of the nations of the world that have made legal provision of homosexual couples calls it "marriage".

Read: http://college-ethics.blogspot.com/2008/07/civil-partnership-does-not-marriage.html

[Monroe Freedman]

Thank you, Patrick, for an extremely thoughtful, indeed, erudite, analysis (although your suggestion that the boycotters have a desire to feel “holier than thou” is unfair to them and unworthy of you). Ultimately, though, I am unpersuaded.

Certainly the collateral consequences of any action should be considered, like the adverse impact on the workers at the hotel. But presumably that would be balanced out by the beneficial impact on workers in New Orleans or wherever else the business of the boycotters would go.

You refer to the boycotters’ attempt to “bend a minority to the will of a majority.” That seems perverse in this context, since it is the hotel owner and his cohorts who are trying to bend a minority to their will, and with the force of state power behind them.

Similarly, you argue that you can’t make people pure by compulsion. Again, I think that’s exactly what the hotel owner is trying to do to with respect to what he considers to be the “impure” conduct of gays. The boycotters’ aren’t the ones who are trying to impose their notions of purity on anyone else, but just to be left free to enjoy the rights that others enjoy.

Finally, I too like the idea of dialogue that is designed to change viewpoints. But do you really expect that the hotel owner is going to sit down with gay rights representatives to have an open dialogue? In my experience, that kind of dialogue, potentially leading to understanding or compromise, doesn’t have a chance until the oppressed party demonstrates that it has the power to cause discomfort to the oppressor. (Gandhi knew that, of course, and imposed pressure through “non-violent” conduct that he well knew would inevitably cause a multitude of deaths.)

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Monroe,

Thanks for your thoughtful and eloquent response to my comment.

I'll concede my imputation of less-than-worthy motives to those arguing for a boycott was over-the-top, but I noticed a tone in a couple of things I read that I thought was unnecessary and rather too dismissive of the owner's viewpoint (which, for the record, I don't share). (For some reasons why, in this particular case, we might be a bit more sensitive to the arguments of those we disagree with, please see this piece by Lee Harris on 'The Future of Tradition': http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/2932146.html)

I admit to confining my concern to the workers of the hotel under consideration: why should *they* suffer for the viewpoint of the owner, a viewpoint which in no way it appears, affects the conduct of the hotel as a business.

I wasn't referring to the boycotters in *this* case as attempting to “bend a minority to the will of a majority," but quoting from Gandhi here to illustrate the kinds of reasons Gandhi took into consideration when contemplating a boycott, although I'm confident that this case is nonetheless on the order of the sort he had in mind as not meeting the conditions for such an action. All the same, we need not (indeed should not) defer to Gandhi simply because he uttered such things, my point was rather that when contemplating a boycott we might canvass a broader spectrum of reasons both "for" and "against" such an action (as was the case for civil disobedience for Gandhi as well).

Those opposed to the court's ruling are abiding by the democratic rules of the game in using the inititative process to change the law: I may not agree with that (indeed, I think the referendum process is overused and troublesome for several reasons), but it simply cannot do to describe such actions as "trying to bend a minority to their will, and with the force of state power behind them." They are playing by the rules of the game, and if they win by those rules, so be it. In any case, all of this is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not the hotel is deserving of a boycott, as the businees itself is, by all appearances, not conducting its business out of strict fidelity to the views of its owner. If we don't like his views we should counter them in the arena in which they're being propagated and on the political terrain he's chosen to express them. I certainly can imagine there are a lot of ethically and politically repugnant views held by corporate CEOs and owners of businesses large and small, but I suspect in many cases those are irrelevant to the conduct of the businesses in question, and when they're not, we can discuss that. And I certainly have no problem with an individual making a decision not to give their business to whomever they choose, but a boycott is a different matter.

I was not as clear as I might have been about the possibility of dialogue, as I meant to say that there are some cases where indeed dialogue is not likely (hence, 'it also happens that "men of good-will" can take very different view of what human happiness and well-being consists in and thus it behooves us to realize that individual differences of belief and value may run so deep that there is no way to overcome or resolve them'), but we can't make a dogmatic determination of this without first having at least made some effort in that direction, which I hardly think happened in this case. People have, over time, changed their minds on this issue, so we might not rule out a priori the possibility of this occurring. Anyway, I like John's suggestion: "So if there is anyone in the AALS who'd like to get hitched in a same-sex marriage while in San Diego, why not have the ceremony at the hotel itself?" This is an example of the kind of creative response to this issue I think is deserving of more attention. Given the political dynamics and momentum in favor of same sex marriage I'm not sure I would characterize gays and lesbians as simply "the oppressed party," or, even if we prefer to view them that way, it is no doubt true that they have already demonstrated their power to cause discomfort to those that disagree with them ('the oppressor'). Incidentally, Gandhi later regretted *some* of his non-violent tactics (especially in the case of fasting) to get others to change their views or refrain from certain actions, but it was a staple of his strategy and campaigns to go through, roughly, several stages and steps (Joan Bondurant has written extensively on this), the first of which involved attempts at persuasion through reason and through self-suffering (to make the opponent more amenable to such persuasion), *before" resorting to tactics that can be seen as involving an element of compulsion or coercion, even if "nonviolent."

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

If the above link to the Harris article doesn't work, a google search with "Lee Harris, the future of tradition," should pull it up.

[Andrew Perlman]

Prawfblawg has a discussion dedicated to Anita's comment above. You can find it here: http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/08/retail-boycotts.html