Chicken Offsets': Conservative Lawyer Creates Website Parodying Liberal Responses to Chick-fil-A

Editors' note: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that the website in question was a parody.

Are you sick of hearing liberals complain pointlessly about the inherent "sin" of eating at Chick-fil-A? So is Ted Frank, a lawyer who represents consumers in class action lawsuits and has a relatively conservative set of legal credentials, has set up a website called "Chicken Offsets," a play on Al Gore's concept of "Carbon Offsets." On the site, Frank offers an odd deal for supporters of gay rights who also are getting withdrawal from the absence of waffle fries and spicy chicken sandwiches:

Hi! I'm Ted Frank and I love the chicken sandwiches at Chick-fil-A. But I also like my gay-married friends and don't like the guilt of indirectly supporting Chick-fil-A's stance on gay rights. And I know there are lots of other people in the same boat. So I've started ChickenOffset.com. Every time you buy a chicken-sandwich meal at Chick-fil-A, you can buy an "offset" here. You can print out the receipt and demonstrate to your friends that the money you gave for LGBT youth more than compensates for the profits you put in Chick-fil-A's coffers. $1 gets you 1 chicken-meal offset; $6 for ten offsets. We promise to send at least 90% of the proceeds (and will almost certainly send more than that) after our minimal expenses to It Gets Better and theWilliams Institute.

Now, lest you be concerned, no, Mr. Frank is not serious, as we had initially reported. Rather, Mr. Frank's fake market for indulgences, IE the concept of paying money to have your sins wiped clean, is intended to parody the quasi-religious character of liberal objections to the "sin" of eating at a restaurant owned by people who oppose gay marriage. In fact, Mr. Frank goes so far as to write this deliciously ironic disclaimer on the "FAQ" page for his idea:

Isn't this like the indulgences of old?

It's little known that the Concilium Tridentinum Butyrum Pullum of 1563 had a codicil excepting chicken sandwiches.

In a hilarious but subtle parody of liberal thinking, Mr. Frank has set up the system for buying his "chicken offsets" so that the market price for that indulgence actually decreases the more you sin (that is, the more "chicken offsets" you need to buy to compensate for giving your business to Chick-fil-A). In other words, after a certain point, sinning has no cost. Mr. Frank also takes direct aim at the hypocrisy of liberals who think buying an "offset" absolves them of moral responsibility for charity or other acts of conviction with this answer on the FAQ:

Shouldn't I just give money to charity instead of paying a middleman for the offset?

Yes. The charity would get more money that way, though most would find that it costs more than $1 to process a $1 donation, so you should make sure you're giving them real money. But if you're lazy or don't want to give a material amount to charity, buy an offset from me or someone else selling offsets.

Scathing stuff, especially considering that this particular parody takes aim not just at the opponents of Chick-fil-A, but at Al Gore and his "carbon offset" idea as well. All things considered, it's almost worth encouraging this to become a serious business, just to see how many liberals would actually pay for these "chicken offsets."