Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

What’s Behind the AALS Boycott?

Larry Ribstein asks some great questions about the AALS annual meeting kerfuffle and finds out why the activists are really doing this:

• What if Mr. Manchester didn’t contribute money to oppose same sex marriage cause, but supported it vocally? Of course contributions are a form of expression. Would or should these groups make a distinction between contributions and other expression of belief?
• What if Mr. Manchester were only a majority shareholder? A minority shareholder? Vice president?  CFO?  Since the protest here isn’t over the hotel’s policies, control would seem to be irrelevant. What if he had only invested a lot of his money in the holding company of the hotel? The franchisor?
• Why just the hotel? Why not the restaurant owner? The food supplier to the hotel? Or any of their shareholders?
• Who exactly would the boycott be hurting? I assume that Mr. Manchester has some kind of contract with the AALS. But what about his workers, many of whom depend on tips? Come to think of it, what if hotel workers or one of its unions had expressed homophobic or anti-same-sex marriage views?
• How would the boycotters feel about teaching students who opposed same sex marriage? (I note that the chair of one of the boycotting groups heads the legal writing program at a Catholic law school).
• If you were a student, would you feel comfortable expressing an anti-same-sex marriage view if you knew that the teacher couldn’t stand to stay at a hotel owned by somebody who opposed same sex marriage?

Now I wouldn’t presume to express my own opinion about these proceedings. But I did a mini public opinion poll by asking my wife, who is about as non-political as you can get, her reaction to the boycott. Her response: “These people don’t have enough to do.”