CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – The Charlotte City Council is under fire after appointing a registered sex offender to the City’s Business Advisory Committee.
Gays Against Groomers North Carolina Chapter demands the Council remove Chad Turner from his new position and plans to protest at a future Council meeting.
Council members appointed Chad Turner, formerly known as Chad Sevearance, during their July 10th meeting. The meeting didn’t mention that Turner is a registered sex offender.
According to the Cherokee County Clerk of Court’s Office, he was charged with three cases of lewd acts on minors under sixteen back in 1998. He was convicted in one of those cases and sentenced to ten years in prison, but he only served two years and got out early on parole. The victim in that case was 15 years old, and Sevearance was 20.
Brian Talbert, Chapter Leader of North Carolina Gays Against Groomers, is frustrated Turner has been appointed to this leadership position.
Gays Against Groomers is a national group that the Anti-Defamation League calls an “anti-LGBTQ+ extremist coalition” that “peddles dangerous and misleading narrative about the LGBTQ+ community” and is known to be aligned with other groups such as Moms For Liberty.
While the group itself is made up of LGBTQ+ individuals, the Anti-Defamation League noted that they include any group that “pushes false claims and conspiracy theories about all or parts of the LGBTQ+ community, regardless of how they personally identify.”
“I think it is a myth that child molestation or grooming is running rampant in the gay community,” Talbert said. “It’s not, but you know, Charlotte Pride and the Charlotte City Council, they’re sending the wrong message to try to dispel this myth when a known child molester is given awards at Charlotte Pride and then appointed to boards by Charlotte City Council.”
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LGBTQ+ publication The Advocate has also specifically reported that those in the group often align with “far-right social media circles.”
Turner also serves as the CEO and President of the Carolinas LGBT Chamber of Commerce, which is the entity that nominated him for the Business Advisory Committee position.
According to Lawrence Corley, the City’s Media Relations Manager, the City only does criminal background checks for community members nominated to a list of specific boards, which doesn’t include the Business Advisory Committee.
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It’s important to note Business Advisory Committee members are unpaid.
“There are so many more deserving LGBT business owners in the City of Charlotte that can represent and be more deserving of that position than Chad Turner,” Talbert said.
QCN reached out to Turner and asked about his conviction, but he has not yet responded.
