South Carolina Pulls Funds From Just Two Out of 180 Arts Orgs: A Gay Men’s Chorus and an LGBTQ+ Theater Company

The South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) removed funding from just two of the nearly 180 arts organizations that it supports, both of which have an LGBTQ+ focus, per the Charleston-based newspaper The Post and Courier. At a meeting held on August 20, the board of the state government agency revisited a vote that it had delayed since June to approve $3.7 million in grants to 180 arts organizations; however, during the meeting, the commission voted to fund all the groups once again except for two — the Greenville Gay Men’s Chorus and the Proud Mary Theater Company, based in Spartanburg — claiming that they need to prove their “artistic merit.”Per the newspaper, the commission changed its reasoning for denying funds from being “structured around specific sexual orientations” to lacking “artistic merit” after it received a letter from the South Carolina ACLU in mid-August. However, in emails obtained through a public records request by the Post and Courier that were reported in June, board member Jessica Rourke told interim commission director Ashley Kerns Brown and former director David Platts that she would not fund “organizations structured around specific sexual orientations, nor should public funds support drag performances.”Though South Carolina itself has not passed a ban on drag performance, its legislature did consider one in 2024. Over a dozen states have weighed such legislation but only two have successfully banned drag performances directly, with four additional states passing laws around “adult” performances that could be construed to target drag shows, according to the Movement Advancement Project.Another SCAC board member, Russell “Rip” Parks, espoused a similar sentiment to Rourke in an email to Brown and Platts. “While these organizations have every right to promote their agendas privately, it is not the role of a state funded agency to promote them,” Parks wrote, per the emails obtained by the Post and Courier.Lee Sn