A North Carolina LGBT pride festival is attracting controversy after advertising sponsorship from a non-profit lead by a convicted child sex offender. Chad Turner is the President and CEO of the Carolinas LGBT Chamber of Commerce, which this year is providing sponsorship to Union County Pride.
North Carolina’s Union County Pride is set to take place on October 11 in Indian Trail. The festival includes a number of events that are listed as both “adults only” and “family friendly,” including a meet-and-greet with local politicians.
On its website, the event lists a number of sponsors, including the Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce (CLGBTCC). The organization describes itself as providing “programming and services designed to help member businesses succeed and grow, including monthly networking mixers, educational and professional development workshops, government contracting opportunities, and partnerships with other community and business organizations.” The CLGBTCC boasts of having extensive government and community partnerships.
But unmentioned on the website is the disclosure that the current President and CEO of the CLGBTCC is a convicted child sex offender.
As previously reported by Reduxx, Chad Severance Turner was first accused by three boys of sexual abuse in 1998.
According to a GoUpstate report on the case from 2000, all of the victims who had come forward had met Turner through his position as the music director at the New Harvest Church of God in Gaffney, South Carolina. The cases were tried separately due to the nature of the charges, and Turner was ultimately only convicted on one offense.
Of the incidents Turner was convicted on, a 14-year-old boy had testified that Turner had invited him to spend the night at his house in the nearby community of Bessemer City, North Carolina. The victim stated that during the visit, Turner had questioned him on how he’d feel about a man performing oral sex on him.
“I thought he was joking,” the boy told the court. He explained that Turner frequently questioned him about sexual acts between men and women, which upset him because of the man’s position in the church. The victim continued that, following a revival meeting, he and Turner stayed overnight at the home of one of the other alleged victims.
The teen says he awoke to find Turner fondling his genitals, but didn’t immediately report it due to shame.
The second minor, who said he was 15 when the incident occurred, stated he was invited to Turner’s home where the older man showed him a pornographic video of a man and a woman having sex. He then said that later that night, after he and Turner went to sleep in the same bed, he woke up to find Turner fondling him.
The third alleged victim, who was also 15 at the time, said Turner had made the same advances to him over a three-week period when he stayed in the boy’s home. The minor said Turner had fondled him several times.
“He told me if I ever told the pastor, he’d make me look like a fool and a liar,” the boy said.
During the trial, Turner’s defense attorney, Thomas Shealy, accused the boys of perpetrating a “witch hunt,” and asserted that it was suspicious that there was a few month delay between them being sexually abused and them going to their parents.
Turner was ultimately convicted on the charges related to the first victim and sentenced to 10 years in prison for committing lewd acts on a minor under the age of 16. He served only 2 years behind bars before being released on parole and being ordered to the sex offender registry.
🚨BREAKING🚨
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) August 5, 2023
Reduxx has learned that North Carolina's Charlotte Pride presented a child sex offender with the 2023 Harvey Milk Award for LGBTQ leadership.
Chad Sevearance-Turner, a former youth minister, was accused of sexual abuse by three church boys.https://t.co/pxhaFxqJax
Since being released from prison, Turner has become an active and notable member of the Charlotte LGBTQ advocacy community.
Turner was first elected the head of the Carolinas LGBT Chamber of Commerce in 2012, and has had his post renewed repeatedly despite the information on his sex offenses being widely known. In his tenure, Turner had spearheaded efforts to push for an expanded “nondiscrimination” ordinance which many complained would have prevented businesses from maintaining spaces such as washrooms as single-sex.
He was named “Person of the Year” by LGBT news outlet QNotes in March of 2015, but would resign from his Chamber of Commerce post in 2016 after his history as a child sex offender came to light. He would once again join the LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce as its inaugural CEO in 2021, a position he has held since. Under his leadership, the Chamber has secured partnerships with prominent organizations like Fifth Third Bank, NASCAR, Duke Energy, Wells Fargo, Sonoco, and Novant Health. He was also recently appointed by Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles to serve on the city’s Business Advisory Committee.
Turner has previously been awarded an honor by the Human Rights Campaign at their annual gala, though at the time, HRC officials refused to state whether they were aware of his child sex offender status prior to giving him the award.
Most recently, Turner was honored with the Harvey Milk Award by Charlotte Pride in a controversial move that was quickly reversed after Reduxx reported on his pedophile past.
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