Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain has said that Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy confided to him that the company earned $30 million on Appreciation Day and said that he would donate that money to “the charitable organizations they support.”

In a Fox News appearance, Cain claimed that gay rights supporters are protesting Chick-Fil-A's opposition to gay marriage to gain attention.

“This is simply an attempt on the part of the gay community to try to leverage their beliefs on another institution, a private company, since they can't seem to get enough attention. That is what this is about,” said Cain, a onetime GOP presidential frontrunner.

Wednesday's Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day called on conservatives to patronize the eateries to support Cathy, who created a firestorm of protest when he said that gay marriage is “inviting God's judgment on our nation.”

“Dan's sales were in excess of $30 million on that day, which is almost twice his previous high,” Cain said. “They are going to take a lot the excess profit they got on that day and contribute it to the charitable organizations they support in even bigger numbers.” (The video is embedded in the right panel of this page. Visit our video library for more videos.)

According to EqualityMatters.org, Chick-Fil-A's charitable arm, The WinShape Foundation, gave nearly $2 million to anti-gay groups in 2010, more than any other year for which public records are available.