Haha, thanks. This aunt knows me, so she wouldn't have been surprised, but I can dream that there were a few huhs??

I'm sorry, that's really rough. Hopefully something will get through in the near future. It must have been so frustrating to attempt to engage with 140 characters or less...my responses below might give you a hint as to why I haven't gotten into Twitter, haha. (I can be more concise, but that takes work!)

Oh, and I did link the Vines piece in another reply as an afterthought to this one, framing it like this: "Also, this is a wonderful piece by Matthew Vines, a gay Christian you may have heard of. He says in part, "To insist on saying that you “disagree” with same-sex marriage as part of your statement about murdered LGBT people is dehumanizing. It communicates that, even in our deaths, we are still an issue to be debated rather than people of inviolable dignity and worth." Not that you were doing that, but the article's pointing out that the founders "disagree" falls under this category. Anyway, I'll leave it there!" [Vine's quote is so great.]

Ugh, don't blame you. This took SO much energy to deal with, but since I have a long memory and will be getting married next week, I felt like I had to clear the air and I'm glad I did. I'd definitely unfollow her if she didn't actually appear to learn from these sorts of conversations (round 1: Affordable Care Act, haha), but I'm lucky this doesn't come up too much with her.

And, after she said she posted it in response to articles wrongly lumping all Christians together as homophobes, didn't think that the Chik Fil A was looking for redemption/headlines, and tried to convince me with a USA Today article <a href="http://(http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/04/07/chick-fil-a-fast-food-dan-cathy/7250871/)" target="_blank">(http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/04/07/chick-fil-a-fast-food-dan-cathy/7250871/) that Chik Fil A is not actually homophobic anymore by pulling the quote about Dan Cathy having a gay friend when the whole article is clear that they are walking back blatant homophobia in hopes of improving business as they expand out of the South. (At least she was apologetic, but this was full of enough unintentional crap that I had to explain further. I include this context because most of my second response refers to it. Hope this helps you in some way! ETA: She acknowleged that I had probably suffered from homophobia as well. [Snark response: um, ya think? Not snark: sigh, at least she's trying/more open to change than a bunch of people who are probably posting this.]
PART TWO (looong response to that response):
Yes, I'm way luckier than most, but homophobia still very much affects me. I am very aware and glad that not all Christians are homophobes - when someone goes to Pride anywhere, there are many denominations that set up booths and march in the parades just as many more set up encampments nearby with hateful signs and bullhorns.
I did not mean that particular restaurant and its staff was looking for redemption/accolades, but look at the DC Gazette’s headline: “Chik Fil A Did WHAT After Gay Club Shooting? Why Isn’t This Viral?,” which certainly means that outside observers think that it should have made national headlines. It also implies that this is some shocking thing to do because of their history of what the Gazette calls “supposed slipups” (and I call stoking homophobia and donating millions to antigay causes). The way the Gazette words this is telling: “Turns out, that while the founders definitely don’t approve of that choice of lifestyle, they believe in compassion.” Because Chik Fil A is a franchise, I think the actions of the Orlando Chik Fil A reflect well on THAT Chik Fil A who took on this charitable expense, not the national leadership that finally pulled back on financially backing discrimination while still not walking back their homophobia enough to disabuse the Gazette and other fans of the enterprise as a whole that my “lifestyle choice” is a more defining sin than breaking the 10 Commandments (and for what it’s worth, I don’t believe it’s a sin at all). Despite becoming friends with a gay man, you'll notice that Cathy is just promising to leave it to politicians and "others" (and that he's wiser and cares, which I admit to being cynical about – I bet he hasn’t donated millions to counteract the homophobia he used to explicitly spread. Maybe he could donate to orgs helping LGBT teens made homeless by homophobic parents, but I bet some pretty un-Christian Christians would object to him “supporting” gay people.). I'm also going to pull a quote: "While Cathy's comments didn't hurt short-term business — and even helped it — Chick-fil-A executives recognize that the comments may have done longer-term damage to the brand's image at the very time it was eyeing major growth outside its friendly Southern market." The whole article is about trying to appeal to urban populations, especially Millennials (hi, haha). I'm not going to dig deep into Christian theology, but I'll just say that while it would be great if all homophobic Christians were to stop giving money to make laws so people are unsafe at work, school, in public bathrooms, etc, even holding those opinions without the financial clout backing them up is harmful. As you know, there is certainly plenty of room in Christianity to choose NOT to be trans/homophobic, so it really grates to see people beg for respect for their “opinion” that has led to so much violence and hurt when they could choose a better way: embracing Jesus’ teachings over a few Old Testament verses, most notably Leviticus, that loads of exegesis has been done on (that is to say, they are controversial). If Jesus really wanted to make homophobia a priority, I think he would have made that clear... (Preaching to the choir on that one I guess. :) ) I just wanted you to know how articles like this one come off. Nowhere in that article do they express any sorrow at the tragedy; they are simply using it as a “gotcha!” moment to insist that homophobic attitudes (e.g., calling gayness a “lifestyle” while allowing divorce and remarriage – a real choice -- outside of the few Biblically endorsed scenarios) are basically harmless if a single franchise does a good deed when an utter NIGHTMARE of a tragedy (perpetuated by extreme homophobia) occurs. A homophobic Christian is far more likely to listen to you than me about these things, which is why I just unloaded this wall of text. I appreciate you listening to my perspective - hope it’s helpful to you and possibly others. :)

Sure... I'll post both parts. (First is too soft-pedaled - wish I'd just gone for something more like the second, but I'll be honest here.)
Part 1, my initial response:
Good for them - it's certainly a very decent thing of their employees to do - but I don't really like seeing a few hundred dollars worth of sandwiches plus staff time (and were they paid?) portrayed as total redemption for the 2 million dollars they spent in efforts to deny people rights at a cost much higher than a sandwich. Again, that particular franchise is apparently made of great people, but that article (especially the title) is a bit tone-deaf [sic: UGH SO OFFENSIVE]. The reason news outlets aren't covering it is because they are focused on the victims and not Chik Fil A's reputation, and rightfully so. I don't think that national headlines are necessary for the givers of this particular good deed to be rewarded, and if that's what they were hoping for, I think it stops being quite such a wonderful act...Sorry, I just wanted to share my perspective.

SECOND BETTER PART TO FOLLOW:

Nicole, THANK YOU for linking to that Matthew Vines piece. My evangelical aunt, who is coming to my (lesbian) wedding on June 25, almost a year to the day after marriage equality was made law nationally, posted a stupidly homophobic article entitled "Chik Fil A did WHAT After Gay Club Shooting? Why Isn't This Viral?" I won't detail the specific homophobic tropes for fellow Toasts, but you can imagine. (For those who are crushingly curious and don't want to read: an Orlando Chik Fil A distributed sandwiches and sweet tea on Sunday to those waiting in line to give blood, with a coupon for a free frosted lemonade when they opened on Monday.)
After my own original 500 word, carefully considered explanation of why the article was fucked up (promise, I was impeccably civil!), she wrote an ok response, and I followed up one last time thanking her for reconsidering, and added a link to Matthew Vines' article, and I think she really got it!! I REALLY hope that her facebook friends who liked the article and her initial response (which ended fine, but started out with the defense that media is portraying all Christians as homophobic and that she wanted to show that wasn't the case) are tempted to click that link.

Sadly I don't have a ton of trust in the Red Cross as a larger organization any more after situations like this...
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cr...

I want to look into giving money to a local LGBT group where I can be more sure that the money will go to at least a LGBT-related cause. Thank you for prompting me to figure out how to do that.

Best thing my fiancee and I ever did before we were at the sharing $$ stage was get a "grocery wallet."
We each put in cash proportional to our income (after I figured out that fair isn't always equal), but you might want a slightly different split if you try it. We actually still have a grocery wallet despite finally getting a joint account because it's really helpful to stay on budget that way. Even when we have money left over, we put in the same amount every week -- it's just the following week we might get a little splurge or eat out together with the "grocery money." When we were still trying to split grocery expenses without the joint account, any independent eating out went on our personal cards. I figured that since we weren't sharing it at all, we shouldn't account for it in the "grocery wallet." My fiancee ate out a lot more than me, and it was her choice to -- she could pack a lunch whenever she wanted -- though honestly that did subsidize me. We probably would have had to up our tiny budget in the wallet if she'd eaten out a little less. Edited to add: this is a LITERAL WALLET, in case that wasn't clear. Logistically, it's sometimes annoying, but we keep in a drawer so whoever is heading out the door can grab it. ETA2: Actually, we still use our own cards for eating out alone or with friends, but when we're together we nearly always use the joint account. (probably unneccessary edit, but I want to be clear that we aren't 100% merged finance-wise, and honestly don't plan to ever be.)

If it's not too much effort and your friend likes the idea, you could do ~ 80 regular-sized cupcakes (or less, depending on the predicted tastes of your crowd) and a bunch of mini cupcakes. That's what my fiancee and I wound up doing for our wedding that's coming up. Unfortunately I don't know how well it's going to work yet, but I figure that people like my future mother-in-law will just want one mini-cupcake, while people who are really into them can have a big one and a little one, or 3 little cupcakes that would equal about 1.5 cupcakes...whatever works for them.

Seconding everyone saying to charge for materials/test cupcakes. One of my fondest memories of my last job is when a coworker baking for a friend's wedding brought in 6 different flavors of cupcakes for us to sample. She was an amazing baker and all of them were good, but there were some clear winners. Your friend may have already nailed down the flavor she wants, but it can't hurt to figure out what the BEST salted caramel recipe is (if only for your peace of mind). :)

Good luck!!