The South Carolina Arts Commission approved a slew of grant requests Thursday morning after it had mulled on the vote in June over concerns that some approvals could violate a President Donald Trump executive order on "gender ideology."
At an Aug. 20 board meeting, commissioners authorized about $3.7 million in grant funding for more than 170 recipients. Funds head to museums, orchestras, festivals and other arts groups throughout South Carolina.
Two organizations, however, will need to wait until at least October to find out if they will get funding. Commissioners asked the Greenville Gay Men's Chorus and the Proud Mary Theatre Company in Spartanburg to defend their artist merit before any decision on grant requests could be made.
Board member Russell "Rip" Parks of Greenville called for the amendment to the morning's grant decision. He said the two organizations needed to further explain and defend the artistic merit of the programs before potential funding could be approved, which is now a decision set to be made at the board's Oct. 15 meeting.
Commissioners passed the amendment in a 6-2 vote.
Parks, at the meeting, presented the challenge of defending the groups' grants to the General Assembly, which appropriates state taxpayer dollars to the arts commission.
"The commission has concerns about two programs that were presented: the Gay Men's Chorus and the Proud Mary Theatre," he said at the meeting.
Parks had expressed this concern in private, too. And he believed the two groups were inconsistent with what the arts commission wishes to promote.
In a June 12 email sent to Interim Commissioner Ashley Brown and outgoing Executive Director David Platts, Parks said he was alarmed to see the requests. The emails were obtained by the ACLU of South Carolina and shared with South Carolina Public Radio.
"While these organizations have every right to promote their agendas privately, it is not the role of a state funded agency to promote them. I cannot support these requests. In the future, I would appreciate your bringing controversial requests to the commissioners’ attention in advance for discussion. What if I had not seen these two line items and had approved them? I could not defend these programs to concerned legislators who could pull funding for the entire Commission over support of these organizations," he said in the email.
Two hours prior on the same day, board member Jessica Rourke of Columbia emailed Brown and Platt with a similar point.
"My decision is based on a personal and governance principle that commission funding should not be directed toward organizations structured around specific sexual orientations, nor should public funds support drag performances," she said in the email.
The board's initial June vote on the funding was delayed to ensure compliance with federal and state requirements, the commission said in a July 7 press release. Board members were unsure if sending funds to the chorus and theatre complied with Trump's executive order that called for federal funds to not be used to "promote gender ideology."
The commission's main source of funding is state tax dollars. Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts serve as a secondary flow of funds.
A federal judge ruled in September 2025 that the executive order's funding provision violated First Amendment rights, but the administration has continually sought to appeal the decision.
SC ACLU Executive Director Jace Woodrum said in a phone call with South Carolina Public Radio that he believed the state agency purposefully targeted LGBTQ+ voices.
"The arts commission is forcing only two organizations in the entire state to defend their artistic merit, and they are both organizations that create art about the lives of LGBTQ people," he said. "Nobody believes that is a coincidence."
Commissioners released a resolution included in the Thursday meeting agenda packet that said grant recipients could not "promote any ideology without regard to what that ideology might be."
"The Commission may require grant recipients to certify, as a condition of grant funding from the Commission, that no grant funding received from the Commission shall be used to fund expression that promotes an ideology," part of the resolution said.
And listed in the resolution, advocacy and promotion of ideologies were said to not be components of artistic merit.
An exact definition of what qualifies as artistic merit has not been released. Brown and Communications Director Jason Rapp did not provide an answer in time for publication on what an artistic merit defense looks like.
The commission's Arts Industry Operating Support Grant, which the chorus and the theatre were categorized under, lists its purpose on the agency website: "To help strengthen arts organizations that bring ongoing arts experiences and services to individuals, communities, and other organizations throughout the state."
Woodrum said the absence of guidance or a clear definition of ideology will cause confusion for organizations seeking grants. "How can an arts organization guess if it's breaking that rule? I mean, vaguely written policies like this — they're intimidating and they're unhelpful."
"To be real, all art conveys ideas," he continued. "And if an arts commission doesn't support art about ideas, it doesn't support art at all," he said.
The Greenville Gay Men's Chorus's potential grant for the 2027 fiscal year is $13,050. It had been awarded $4,750 for the 2026 fiscal year, according to an agency database. The Proud Mary Theatre Company will need to defend its artistic merit for a potential $2,063 grant and $1,803 in bridge funding. It had been awarded $4,750 in the 2026 fiscal year.
