Why Hurt NC Businesses Over NC’s Transgender Bathroom Law?

Boycotts are notorious blunt instruments of change. Boycotts try to change an organization’s behaviour by imposing financial sanctions in the form of a reduction in business income. Inevitably, innocent parties get hurt. The author of the piece below is pointing out that her North Carolina bookstore is being hurt by a boycott of North Carolina that is grounded in that state’s new law “that bars transgender people from the bathrooms of their choice and permits discrimination based on sexual orientation.” It’s a law the writer vehemently opposes, but the backlash is hitting her, none the less. Of course, the ends might justify the means, here — but presumably only if the ends actually have some chance of being achieved by those means. >>>

LINK: Why Should My Store Be Boycotted Over a Law I Despise?
(by Linda-Marie Barrett for New York Times)

…But now we’re being made to pay a price for a law we vehemently oppose, as artists, businesses and government officials have begun to boycott North Carolina. Our store, too, is being boycotted. Customers from other states tell us they won’t visit until the law is no more. More threatening to us financially and to our community culturally is the cancellation of events by authors…..

What do you think?

(p.s. see this Freakonomics podcast plus transcript: “Do Boycotts Work?”)

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