Charlotte Pride gives 2023 Harvey Milk award to convicted sex offender

An LGBT festival that runs from August 19-20 in Charlotte, North Carolina, has conferred a top award to a convicted sex offender.

Charlotte Pride, which is sponsored by Bank of America, McDonald's, Bud Light, Lowe's, NASCAR, and a host of other ESG-captive corporations, has given its 2023 Harvey Milk Award to Chad Sevearance-Turner.

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."

Sevearance-Turner was apparently awarded for his work as president of the Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce — a role in which he has overseen the chamber secure "valuable partnerships with prominent organizations like Fifth Third Bank, NASCAR, Duke Energy, Wells Fargo, Sonoco, and Novant Health."

WBTV-TV reported that Sevearance-Turner had previously served as the president of Charlotte's LGBT Chamber of Commerce but resigned after his track record with young boys had been flagged as a possible discredit to any future work conducted by the group. At the time of Sevearance-Turner's resignation, the group had been pushing to allow transvestites to use women's bathrooms.

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.

Reduxx highlighted that Sevearance-Turner only served two years out of a 10-year sentence for molesting an adolescent under the age of 16 and was then released on parole.

Sevearance-Turner, formerly the music director at the New Harvest Church of God in Gaffney, South Carolina, had been found guilty by a jury in Cherokee County, South Carolina, of molesting a 15-year-old parishioner while the boy slept.

GoUpState.com reported in 2000 that Sevearance-Turner had been charged with three counts of lewd act on a minor but that two of the three cases would be tried separately.

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 second alleged victim's house following a revival meeting, he awoke to find Sevearance-Turner molesting him.

The alleged victim noted why he hadn't come forward straight away: "I was ashamed. ... I thought there was something bad about me."

The victim who had been 15 when molested said that Sevearance-Turner had on another occasion invited him to his home and played a pornographic film for him. Following his molestation, the 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."

Another boy, then-15, claimed the future Charlotte Pride awardee had fondled him several times.

Of the three cases, Sevearance-Turner was only convicted on one.

Since his conviction for molesting a minor, at least two LGBT activist groups have provided honors to Sevearance-Turner

Reduxx reported that the LGBT news site QNotes named him "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.

Sevearance-Turner's latest award takes its name from Harvey Bernard Milk, a California politician who similarly preyed on boys.

Milk's biographer, Randy Shilts, noted in "The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" that the politician, whose early campaign was funded by the notorious cultist Jim Jones of the Jonestown Massacre, "had a proclivity for male minors, who included 16-year-old Jack Galen McKinley. ... Milk would prime troubled, underage boys and young men with booze and drugs, then coerce them into sexual acts," reported the Federalist.

Shilts, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter and close friend of Milk, who died of AIDS in 1994, wrote, "Sixteen-year-old McKinley was looking for some kind of father figure. … At 33, Milk was launching a new life, though he could hardly have imagined the unlikely direction toward which his new lover would pull him."

McKinley later committed suicide.

Per California's current statutory rape law, instituted in 1970, having sex with a 16-year-old is statutory rape, rendering Milk a rapist.

Despite his criminal pederasty, Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.

Concerning his recognition by Charlotte Pride, Turner said in a LinkedIn post, "I am honored to be to be chosen as the 2023 Harvey Milk Award recipient! I am also humbled to be listed with these amazing humans who do so much great work for our region. Charlotte Pride, thank you for your daily work and advocacy for the LGBT and community and beyond!"

Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce said in a statement that Turner's receipt of the award is "a testament to his unwavering commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusivity in the workplace and marketplace," and thanked him for "making a positive impact."

Reduxx indicated that Charlotte Pride has yet to comment on whether it knew of Sevearance-Turner's background prior to conferring the award to him.

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