Nov 25, 2013
Equality NC to Hold Wilmington Press Conference Responding to Public Funding of Anti-Gay Schools
State equality group leads press conference in Wilmington, Tuesday, November 26, at 4:30 p.m.
Wilmington, N.C. – Equality NC, North Carolina’s statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocacy organization, will lead a press conference in response to new laws allowing public funding of anti-gay schools Tuesday, Nov. 26, at 4:30 p.m., from the Hilton Riverside at 301 N. Water St, Wilmington, N.C.
Hosted by Equality NC’s executive director Chris Sgro, and featuring Rep. Susi Hamilton as well as Wilmington community leaders, the November 26, media event will specifically speak to broader public opposition of Wilmington’s Myrtle Grove Christian School’s decision to deny admission or continued enrollment to gay students and children from gay families in 2014, as well as Equality NC’s legislative lobbying efforts demanding that schools with similar policies be made ineligible to receive taxpayer-funding beginning with the 2014-15 school year.
In 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a school program that would make it possible to use taxpayer funds to subsidize student attendance to certain private schools.
WHAT: Equality NC Press Conference
WHEN: Tuesday, November 26, 2013
WHERE: Hilton Riverside at 301 N. Water St, Wilmington, N.C.
WHO: Rep. Susi Hamilton; Chris Sgro, Executive Director, Equality NC; Ryan Burris, President, Wilmington PRIDE; local faith leaders, parents, and students.
“While it is lawful for private schools to reject those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, this shameful reality hardly makes it right,” Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality NC, said on Wednesday. “But exclusionary policies like those at Myrtle Grove Christian School not only shed light on the sometimes harsh realities of growing up LGBT or in an LGBT family in North Carolina, they also expose the inequality of opportunity that our state’s current private school programs impose on our state’s most vulnerable citizens. Because Myrtle Grove will be one of the private schools eligible for tax-payer funding in the 2014-2015 school year, Equality NC pledges to rally our supporters to take immediate action and lobby legislative leaders to make sure that not one dollar of taxpayer money can be used for schools that discriminate for any reason, including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”