The e-mail alerts zip across the nation, fomenting outrage.
Levi Strauss donates to Planned Parenthood. Don't buy their blue jeans! Johnson & Johnson advertises Tylenol in a gay magazine. Click here to register your disgust! Support traditional values: Boycott Pampers! Boycott Ford! Don't shop at Target!
In the last 12 months, conservative advocacy groups have urged their millions of members to stop buying brand after trusted brand. Boycotts have long been a mainstay of both the right and the left, but analysts say there's a new intensity to the protests as social conservatives test their ability to punish companies for taking liberal stances on issues such as abortion and gay rights.
Their latest target: the popular line of American Girl dolls and books.
The American Family Assn., an influential conservative group, recently told its 2.1 million e-mail subscribers that American Girl made "a terrible mistake" by donating money to a nonprofit youth group that supports abortion rights. More than 100,000 consumers have used the group's website to e-mail a protest to American Girl.
The Pro-Life Action League, an antiabortion group based in Chicago, plans to announce a boycott of the brand today. That would put American Girl's dolls, accessories and books on a long list of products -- including Allstate insurance, Nike shoes and Victoria's Secret lingerie -- targeted in recent months.
"It's getting so that if you're going to boycott based on principles, you practically have to show up for work wearing a barrel and eat nothing but grass," said Peter LaBarbera, a conservative activist.
He may soon add to the list. As executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, a conservative lobbying group, LaBarbera is considering calling a boycott against Kraft Foods and Walgreens to pressure them to withdraw their support of next summer's Gay Games in Chicago.
"It used to be the left -- guys on the lawn with 'No Nukes' buttons," LaBarbera said. "Now, it's pro-family conservatives fighting corporate America."
Boycotts remain a time-honored tactic for the left. A national coalition of farmworkers, college students and liberal ministers recently ended a four-year boycott of Yum Brands' Taco Bell chain after securing a promise of better working conditions for migrant tomato pickers.
