Dolce & Gabbana sparked an international furor after designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana argued that children born through in vitro fertilization were "synthetic," leading Elton John and other bold-faced names to call for a boycott of the brand.
Still, whether or not Americans would support such a large-scale boycott even in the wake of the controversy is questionable, at least according to the results of a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. Fifteen percent of those polled said they felt that a boycott against a business is an effective form of protest, while 62 percent said they had never boycotted a business because they disagreed with its stance on a political issue.
Interestingly, 58 percent of respondents said that business owners should avoid stating political opinions on topics like same-sex marriage and abortion.
A number of stars, including Zoe Saldana, have argued against a boycott of the fashion brand despite having pro-marriage equality views. ,
"If you continue to follow the news, you see they all kinda hugged it out," Saldana said.
How do you feel about boycotts? Are they an effective way to show displeasure with the actions or statements of a business or business owner? Sound off in the comments section below.
The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted March 20-23 among U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the poll's methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov's reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.