A prominent North Carolina LGBTQ advocacy group welcomed a known convicted pedophile to its gala, despite knowing of his criminal past.
Chad Turner, 45, was one of those in attendance at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Feb. 10 event, called “No Exception,” sponsored by Bank of America.
HRC Press Secretary Brandon Wolf and Democratic State Senator Lisa Grafstein spoke at the dinner held at Le Meridien Charlotte. Turner previously received an honor from the HRC, which declined to say at the time whether they knew of his past as a child molester. Reduxx reported.
Turner, a former youth minister, was accused by three boys of sexual abuse in 1998, when he was 20 or 21 years old. The victim he was convicted of attacking was 14 years old and woke up to find the predator fondling his genitals.
He served only two years of a 10-year sentence for committing lewd acts on a minor under 16 years of age. Following her parole, she was ordered to register on the North Carolina sex offender registry.
Despite his criminal past, Turner, executive director of the Carolina LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce, has managed to become a prominent member of Charlotte’s LGBTQ advocacy community.
Turner pictured wearing a silver vest with his colleagues at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner held at Le Meridien Charlotte. In his post, he wrote, in part, “it’s always great to come together to support @hrcnorthcarolina.” So many people united to achieve equality, without exception
Mug shot of Chad Turner, formerly Chad Turner-Sevearance, accused by three boys of sexual abuse in 1998. One of the boys was just 14 years old. He was convicted of committing lewd acts against a minor under 16 years of age, in relation to the first victim.
His Linkedin profile shows Turner’s current role as executive director of the Carolina LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce and his more than 500 connections.
In August, Turner received the 2023 Harvey Milk Award, presented to him by the Charlotte community, who noted his “exceptional leadership and commitment to the community,” according to the Postmillennial.
During the gala event, Turner dressed in a bow tie and matching gray paisley tuxedo vest, while smiling with his colleagues.
On his Instagram he wrote in the post: “It’s always a pleasure to get together to support @hrcnorthcarolina.”
“So many people united to achieve equality, without exception,” he said, in part.
Turner was the music director of the New Harvest Church of God in Gaffney, South Carolina, where he met his three young victims, according to a 2000 report in GoUpstate.com.
Each of the boys testified to Turner about their frightening and inappropriate encounter with their predatory youth leader.
The 14-year-old boy had testified that Turner had invited him to spend the night at his home in Bessemer City, North Carolina, and during the visit, Turner had asked him how he would feel if a man performed oral sex on him. him, according to the media.
The boy initially said, “I thought he was joking.”
During his exchanges, he talked to the boy about sexual acts between men and women and how he felt about it, which the boy expressed “upset him about the man’s position in the church.”
The situation became more complex when during a night with other young people, the minor woke up and found Turner ‘caressing’ him.
She said she didn’t report him immediately out of embarrassment. “I was embarrassed,” she said. “I thought there was something wrong with me.”
The Human Rights Campaign is the largest LGBTQ rights lobbying group in the United States, with an annual budget of about $45 million.
Created in 1980, the campaign spent its first decades fighting for equal treatment for gays and lesbians.
But like many similar organizations, it found itself rudderless after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015.
Since then, he has taken on the role of transgender rights, with inflammatory results.
The HRC insists that transgender women should be allowed to compete in sports and that children should be able to receive so-called “gender-affirming care,” including puberty blockers and surgery.
DailyMail.com has contacted the North Carolina Human Rights Campaign for comment.