An LGBT festival that took place over the weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, originally planned to present its annual Harvey Milk Award to an activist who had helmed the Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce and worked to advance the cause of the rainbow coalition.
According to the event's site, this award is given annually "to an individual to honor exceptional leadership, service to the community, and those who champion LGBTQ causes that impact the Charlotte community and beyond."
Charlotte Pride's plan hit a snag after it became widely publicized that the awardee, Chad Sevearance-Turner, was a convicted child molester.
While Harvey Milk, the California politician after whom the award is named, similarly preyed on boys, Charlotte Pride — which is sponsored by Bank of America, McDonald's, Wells Fargo, Equitable, Bud Light, Lowe's, NASCAR, Amazon, Walmart, and other woke corporate behemoths — ultimately decided not to hand out the award this year.
The festival said in a statement obtained by WSOC-TV, "We do not give every single award out every year. Charlotte Pride was originally going to do Harvey Milk, but upon further discussion, decided not to give out that award this year."
As of earlier this month, Sevearance-Turner was featured as the would-be winner on the festival's "Champions of Pride" page.
The sex offender's biography on the LGBT festival's site noted that his "career has been driven by a deep commitment to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)."
The bio further noted that under Sevearance-Turner's leadership, the Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce has "secured valuable partnerships with prominent organizations like Fifth Third Bank, NASCAR, Duke Energy, Wells Fargo, Sonoco, and Novant Health."
Beyond his work securing investment and support from woke capital and pushing DEI initiatives, the festival lauded Sevearance-Turner for serving as "the voice for the LGBT+ business and professional community."
The festival has since scrubbed Sevearance-Turner's name and information from its website.
WSOC indicated that the festival did not make explicit why it had decided not to hand out the Harvey Milk Award this year.
TheBlaze previously reported that the North Carolina Sex Offender and Public Protection Registry lists Charlotte Pride's new awardee as a registrant, noting he committed the offense for which he was convicted in July 1998.
Sevearance-Turner, formerly the music director at the New Harvest Church of God in Gaffney, South Carolina, had been accused of molesting multiple minors. He was convicted in one case, having been found guilty by a jury in Cherokee County, South Carolina, of molesting a 15-year-old parishioner while the boy slept.
In addition to molestation, Sevearance-Turner was also accused of showing boys pornographic videos and having them sleep beside him.
He ultimately served two years out of a 10-year sentence and was then released on parole.
One of the alleged victims, reportedly 14 at the time, indicated that Sevearance-Turner invited him over to his then-Bessemer City home and asked him "how he'd feel about a man performing oral sex on him," noting that he figured the music director had been joking at the time.
The same victim claimed that on an another occasion, during a sleepover at a second alleged victim's house following a revival meeting, he awoke to find Sevearance-Turner molesting him.
Another boy, then 15, claimed the pederast whom Charlotte Pride would later call the "voice for the LGBT+ business and professional community" had fondled him several times.
Following his molestation, one boy indicated Sevearance-Turner had told him that if he ever told the pastor, "he'd make me look like a fool and a liar."
Despite his track record, Reduxx reported that the LGBT news site QNotes named Sevearance-Turner "Person of the Year" in 2015.
Sevearance-Turner also accepted the "N.C. Organization of the Year" award from the Human Rights Campaign, a powerful LGBT activist group, in 2016 on behalf of the Charlotte’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce just prior to his resignation as its leader.
WCNC-TV reported that while head of the Charlotte LGBT Chamber, the sex offender "played an active role" in expanding a non-discrimination ordinance, which added sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression to the list of protected characteristics in commercial non-discrimination, public accommodations, and passenger vehicles-for-hire ordinances.
Critics of Sevearance-Turner's handiwork warned that the ordinance would enable men to freely enter women's bathrooms and other private places, thereby undermining public safety.
While Charlotte Pride has decided not to award a child molester this time around, the organization is ostensibly not against all forms of child victimization, having opposed parental rights legislation and condemned Republican efforts to protect children from sex-change mutilations.
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