Charlotte Pride has announced that there will be no recipient of the 2023 Harvey Milk Award due to the discovery of a convicted pedophile among the previous winners.
Charlotte Pride Cancels Harvey Milk Award After Controversy
The 2023 Harvey Milk award for exceptional “LGBT+” advocacy will not be awarded by Charlotte Pride, as the announced winner’s past as a convicted child sex offender has come to light.
“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,” the leading Charlotte, North Carolina, LGBT organization told local outlet WSOC on Friday.
The group did not provide specific details regarding the decision to cancel the Harvey Milk Award.
Controversial Winner
Chad Sevearance-Turner, a former music minister who served years in prison for sexually abusing a minor boy, was originally slated to receive the award this year.
Charlotte Pride had praised him as an “influential advocate for LGBT+ issues,” according to a report by Reduxx.
Sevearance-Turner, 45, currently serves as the president and chief executive officer at the Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit that supports LGBT+ and allied businesses in North and South Carolina.
In 1998, Sevearance-Turner was accused by three minor boys of sexual abuse, all of whom he met through his position as music director for New Harvest Church of God in Gaffney, South Carolina.
The accusations were tried in three separate cases.
Conviction and Fallout
Sevearance-Turner was eventually convicted in 2000 of performing a lewd act on a minor under 16 and sentenced to ten years in prison. He served just two years before being released on parole.
He is currently listed on the North Carolina sex offender registry.
After his child sex offense conviction came to light, Charlotte Pride quickly removed Sevearance-Turner’s name from its website page listing this year’s “Champions of Pride” award winners.
However, an archived version of the page shows him listed.
This is not the first time Sevearance-Turner’s child sex offender status has caused controversy. In 2016, he resigned as president of Charlotte’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce after his conviction became known.
Despite the controversy, Sevearance-Turner has remained active in advocating for LGBT+ rights, including pushing for transgender individuals to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
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