Borrowing liberally and shamelessly from a Facebook discussion by someone else – but whom I am concordance with – I can both understand and find understandable a boycott of a company arising from objections to its corporate practices of that company. e.g. how it treats it workers or clients. Quite another thing because one objects to one stated opinion of the company’s owner.
The proponents of the latter kind of boycotts have appointed themselves as the judge and jury in a trial for a thought crime they themselves have made up: it is patently obvious that it is they who are the more objectionable party.
Although I do not recall having knowingly seen a packet of Barilla pasta, if I were to see one I would feel no inclination not to purchase it because its chairman, Guido Barilla has antediluvian views on gays in public life.
Announcing that he did not want to see gay characters in any form of advertising for his company’s products (someone should have pointed out the ad at the top of this post, which the German arm of the company promptly re-released), he suggested that gays who objected should buy another product.
This is not the first time that a senior executive in a profitable company has turned out to be a bit of a bell-end, and will not be the last. (Even if this one, at least, if not issued a retraction, then showed an awareness of the way in which his stated comments had been received.)