Absolve Chick-fil-A guilt with Gay Credits!

Carbon credits are sold as a way to buy indulgences offset carbon emissions.

I propose Gay Credits to absolve Chick-fil-A guilt. They’re cheap, only one penny per $10 of Chick-fil-A spending!

Here’s why:

Chick-fil-A donated $5 million to anti-gay groups over 8 years (2003-2010). Over this time, Chick-fil-a’s total sales were $18.8 billion.

What percentage of that $18.8 billion went to anti-gay groups? $5 million ÷ $18.8 billion = 0.027%. That is, 27 thousandths of a percent. In other words, for every $10 you spent at Chick-fil-A, about a quarter of a penny ($0.0027) went to an anti-gay group.

If this guilts you, you can have four times the impact of Chick-fil-A on the culture war if you donate only 1 penny to a pro-gay group for every $10 you spend at Chick-fil-A. Yes, just one penny!

Each penny is a Gay Credit, and each Gay Credit absolves $40 of Chick-fil-A purchases!

Now how do I make a market for this…

A message from the author

The point here is that one’s contribution to an anti-gay group through buying at Chick-fil-A is smaller than a rounding error, and you can 4X Chick-fil-A’s impact for almost nothing.

All this aside, public sentiment is clearly going against the anti-gay groups. Chick-fil-A’s donations aren’t affecting the long-term trend, which is clearly favoring equal rights for gays.

Appendix

Chick-fil-A’s annual sales numbers:

• 2010: $3.6 billion (source)
• 2009: $3.2 billion (source)
• 2008: $3.0 billion (source)
• 2007: $2.6 billion (source)
• 2006: $2.3 billion (source)
• 2005: $1.9 billion (source)
• 2004: $1.7 billion (source)
• 2003: $1.5 billion (source)