The Rev. Franklin Graham is so not cool with gay couples who express their romantic feelings using more than a subtle nod from across the room.

He’s even more not cool with companies using same-sex couples in their advertising, like Tiffany & Co.’s two men sitting on stairs and Wells Fargo’s women learning sign language for their adopted daughter.

Earlier this month, Graham took to Facebook to announce he’d moved the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s accounts and suggested Christians boycott both it and Tiffany.

Progressive Christians and the unchurched predictably were quick to hee-haw over Graham’s choice of BB&T, a bank that supported a gay-pride fundraiser but – Graham said in a follow-up op-ed piece – hasn’t used same-sex couples in its national campaigns.

French

More intriguing to me was the response from Middle Tennessee’s David French – half of a conservative power couple with wife Nancy – gaining national attention for their smart and witty writing, punditry and, in David’s case, plunging into legal frays as a representative of American Center for Law & Justice.

He wrote in the National Review that boycotts are “culturally counterproductive.” He explained further in our recent interview.

Q: I was surprised when you wrote, basically, that you were fine with Wells Fargo and that we should be, too. Can you talk more about how you came to that?

A: “It’s a couple of factors. No. 1, I find that a boycott culture is antithetical to a free-speech culture. It’s a little bit odd saying that, because a boycott is an example of exercising free speech, but a boycott culture is one that is designed to punish someone else for expressing a particular point of view. It’s an act designed to chill and narrow a marketplace of ideas.’’

Q: Are you saying commerce is more important than anyone’s religious beliefs?

“Not at all. What I’m saying is that there are many competing interests in play. When we’re talking about the most effective and principled way to advance and protect religious liberty and free speech, it’s generally not to drive your opponents out of business, but rather to rebut bad ideas with better ideas.

"Then, of course, there’s the very practical notion of whether your boycott is counterproductive and whether you have enough information to make the right decision.’’

Q: I was intrigued by your line that liberal boycotts tend to work because “they play on the sympathies and biases of fellow liberals.” Could you give me an example? The one that comes to mind for me is the Memories Pizza boycott, but they ended up with a GoFundMe account of $843,787.

A: “I’m not so much talking about boycotts like the one that worked to shut down Memories Pizza but ultimately backfired as conservatives rallied.

“Conservatives are better at the “buycott” than the boycott – supporting a business rather than targeting a business for destruction.

“An example of how strident criticism from the left created a nearly instantaneous response from a major corporation was Katie Couric’s interview of Laverne Cox, a transgender television star. She apparently asked too many questions for Cox’s comfort on the actual transition itself.

“Even though Katie Couric was supportive of Cox, there was an immediate outcry against Couric, and so she had Cox back on her show to apologize profusely. When was the last time you saw a conservative outcry on a major show followed quickly by an abject, groveling apology?

“I think another great example of how an outcry caused a company to take decisive action was Mozilla getting rid of [co-founder] Brendan Eich simply because he donated to Prop 8.’’

Q: Why do you believe there’s more room for dissention on the right than the left?

“When the right sees a beloved entity or person being targeted, the right will often rally. But when it tries to affirmatively take on a large liberal institution, the response tends to be more piecemeal and far less united.

“Let’s take, for example, the ill-fated Disney boycott of years past. There was a concerted effort by a number of powerful Christian organizations to influence one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. Since that time, Disney only grew. I went to a church where the denomination was observing the Disney boycott, and my peers’ children were awash in Disney merchandise.

“My alternative is pretty simple: Reward commercial excellence by using the best products available, but use the best products available to advance the principals and ideals that you believe in.’’

Q: I read a recent article that quantified Franklin Graham’s vast reach on social media. Perhaps there was an idea years ago of him being a little more warm and cuddly, but it seems like he’s really emerged in recent months as a leader in the culture wars on the conservative side.

A: “I think the word to describe Franklin Graham’s public advocacy is fearless. He does not care about politically correct convention and what anyone thinks he should say. I say all of that to his credit. I disagree with him on this one point. His relentless advocacy for persecuted Christians has been invaluable, and that has earned him a large following.’’

Q: You and Nancy have emerged as conservative voices in your own right and put Tennessee on the map as far as advocacy. Is there anything you are particularly concerned about that you’re working on now?

A: “An area of prime concern for me is, specifically in the Christian community, the ability to develop a thicker skin in dealing with the culture. It’s absolutely vital.

“It’s distressing to me that, while the apostles in the early church could take a literal beating, some Christians in the United States today can’t withstand a tweeting.

“When I’ve been speaking around the country and in my writing, I’ve been encouraging cultural fortitude.

“In these firestorms you see kicked up around the country – Indiana being any example – if you can just hold on for 72 hours, the attention of the left drifts away to the next target.

“But we often find elected officials and even Christians who are involved in the public square have a difficult time holding on through 72 hours of tweets and social media.’’