Can We Buy Away The Hate?

You’ve heard about carbon offsetting, where your decision to drive a Hummer or fly by private jet can be “offset” by paying a fee to a company like TerraPass to reduce your carbon footprint elsewhere. But what about hate offsetting? As in, if you want to buy a product from somebody who supports anti-gay efforts, can you offset your funding of homophobia by giving money to a pro-gay cause?

No, you cannot. And it’s ridiculous to assume you could.

Except that’s what the website GayGamer was advising video gamers this summer who absolutely had to purchase the Xbox 360 title Shadow Complex, which is based on sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card’s Empire series. Which means in all likelihood (we haven’t read the contracts) that your purchase of Shadow Complex from Chair Entertainment and Epic Game puts money directly into the pocket of Card, the National Organization for Marriage board member who thinks men and women become gay through childhood rape or molestation. (Card also called for the overthrow of government if Prop 8 didn’t pass.)

By many accounts, Shadow Complex is a fantastic game. And just because it’s benefiting a virulent homophobe isn’t enough to keep some players from buying the game. So if you must have it, GayGamer advises you “offset” the hate funding by donating a few bucks to a gay charity. Will that be enough to keep you with a clear conscious?