Two hours before Progress NC’s “Garden Party Against Hate,” the governor’s office canceled the event because Progress NC allegedly was not planning to abide by its contract. The event was to take place on the first floor and garden of the Executive Mansion on Wednesday, July 13, at 6 p.m., in criticism of House Bill 2.
Chris Sgro, the only LGBT member of the North Carolina General Assembly and the executive director of Equality NC, spoke at an impromptu press conference outside the mansion after the cancellation, accusing Gov. Pat McCrory of not listening to the LGBT community.
“Here again, he is refusing to talk to North Carolinians about the issues that are most important to our state,” Sgro said. “This governor and this General Assembly have been woefully out of touch with the values of our great state. They have advanced a radical agenda that is hurting our state every single day.”
Graham Wilson, the governor’s press secretary, explained in a statement why the event was canceled.
“It became clear this afternoon that Progress NC had reserved the Executive Mansion for a coordinated political protest instead of the event it has discussed with staff and agreed upon in its contract,” Wilson said. “These publicly announced plans were in violation of the agreed upon contract, therefore the permit to use the mansion has been cancelled.”
Executive director of Progress NC, a nonprofit that promotes a balanced approach to government in North Carolina, Gerrick Brenner, also spoke out against McCrory at the conference, defending the group’s authority to hold the event and criticizing how the governor’s office canceled it just two hours before it was supposed to take place.
Brenner expressed concern that the Executive Mansion was open to the Jesse Helms Center, a non-political organization that held an event in May, but unavailable for Progress NC’s event.
“Pat McCrory’s Governor’s Mansion might be open to the Jesse Helms Center, but it’s clearly off limits to the friends of tolerance, diversity and the LGBT community,” Brenner said.
The mansion’s garden is supposed to be open to all nonprofit organizations as long as they don’t break the rules of the contract made to book the garden for an event.
Some of the attendees were disappointed that the party was canceled, but still stuck around to protest the passage of HB 2.
After the press conference, many attendees stayed to blow air horns and trumpets at the Executive Mansion as part of a weekly tradition to protest the passage of HB 2.
One attendee, Uriah Ward, came from Greenville, North Carolina to attend the event in hopes that he could speak out about the injustices being done to the LGBT community.
“I felt personally invested in this issue because I have seen the harm that it has done to our state,” Ward said. “By trade I’m a teacher, and I want to make sure that the kids I teach grow up in a more welcoming world than the one that a lot of people have been struggling through now.”
