It’s been coming for a long time, as we always knew it would. The fleshy orange dictator, whose name I refuse to write, has reached out his sweaty hands and touched what some consider to be the heart of the SC arts community—the SC Arts Commission—hoping that, like everything else he touches, it, too, would begin to stink and shrink and ultimately become another monster in his menagerie of fiends and ogres destroying all that is free-thinking, unifying, and good.
He may have come for our heart, but he’s so poorly informed that he doesn’t even know where to find the beating heart of this community. He thinks it’s in our wallets, but we know it’s in our souls.
Misinformation is a throughline in this debacle that started when two of the SC governor-appointed commissioners at the SCAC (wedding planner Jessica Rourke and amateur artist “Rip” Banks, who runs a Christian arts ministry out of his church) viciously targeted just two of the 180 arts organizations that applied for funding. The two organizations targeted are the Greenville Gay Men’s Chorus and the Proud Mary Theatre Company in Spartanburg—two organizations that explicitly state they are pro-LGBTQ+ (unlike the many other organizations that are also welcoming of LGBTQ+ artists).
At first, all the applied-for grant money was delayed, including that of other theatres, ballet companies, etc. Then, at the August 20th SCAC board meeting, two things happened. First, every other potential grant was approved, save for the Greenville Gay Men’s Choir and the Proud Mary Theatre Co., who were charged with the vague task of proving their “artistic merit” before the next board meeting in October. Second, the commission put forth a new policy prohibiting grant funding from being used to “promote any ideology.”
Clearly, the actions of the SCAC, initiated by Rourke and Rip, are at best, problematic, at worst, an impediment to the First Amendment, and any way we look at it, hypocritical as hell.
Thinking that the meanings of words like “ideology,” “decency,” and “morality” can be shaped into weapons to defend their own conservative ideology, they are trying to use these words to overthrow any other ideology they do not favor.
Ideologies, which are basically systematic bodies of concepts, shape our lives, many of which not all of us agree with. I’m particularly sensitive to ideologies like capitalism, colonialism, authoritarianism, and fascism these days.
The fact that the commissioners of the SCAC cannot see that they are operating from the ideology of conservatism (the commitment to traditional values and opposition to change and innovation) as they issue a resolution banning arts organizations from “expression that promotes an ideology” has my head swimming!
Within the same resolution they state that the “Commission’s activities shall be ‘directed toward encouraging and assisting rather than limiting the freedom of artistic expression that is essential for the well-being of the arts,’” essentially contradicting themselves.
In fact, the resolution contradicts everything about the SCAC from their stated vision, “We envision a South Carolina where the arts are valued and all people benefit from a variety of creative experiences,” to their stated mission which is “to expand access to the arts and foster creativity for all South Carolinians.” The commission goes on to list five core values: accountability, leadership, creativity, relationships, and learning, ironically expanding on the learning core value by saying, “We believe learning in and through the arts is integral to a continuum of lifelong growth.”
The hypocrisy is overwhelming. This kind of targeted scrutiny is in diametric opposition to the commission’s mission statement and is nothing less than outright CENSORSHIP.
As a SC citizen and a human being I am morally offended that the SCAC is operating from the stance of their own intolerance and biased, bigoted, discriminatory ideology in the administration of funding for clearly political reasons. The resolution harkens back to executive order #14168 on “gender ideology” which is clearly a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the Bostock v. Clayton decision of 2020 which says that protections of Title VII extend to gender identity.
How dare these small-minded people stand in judgement of other human beings and impose their bigotry on the way arts funding is distributed in our state? The fact that they prefer prurience over science is no excuse for this kind of ignorance and bigotry. We cannot pretend that the scientific findings of medicine, genetics, and neuroscience (specifically neuroimaging) are not real just because they make us uncomfortable.
And when it comes to these targeted organizations having to prove their “artistic merit” to the commissions, I wonder what skills, or experience, or specific education a wedding planner or an amateur artist possess that qualifies them to judge the artistic merit of a theatre or choral group?
It’s important not to confuse a person’s art preferences or their artistic TASTE, or the lack thereof, with the competence to adjudicate the merit, the worth of art. When Jasper endeavors to adjudicate pieces of art – be it poems or paintings – we bring in experts in those fields. We would never ask a party planner to determine the worth or the value of a choral or theatrical group.
All this leaves us feeling frustrated and defeated as if there is nothing we can do to effect change. But we are not yet defeated and there is something we can all do. We can make our voices heard in a number of ways.
Before the next meeting of the SCAC board on October 15 from 10 am – noon, we can express our comments at https://www.southcarolinaarts.com/about-the-scac/board/. THIS MUST BE DONE BY NOON ON OCTOBER 8TH TO BE RECOGNIZED.
We can attend the meeting on OCTOBER 15TH from 10 am until noon. We can be there and listen quietly in a viewing room. Or, if we’re so inclined, we can meet our commissioners in the parking lot and peacefully let them know, via signs (if that’s your thing) and crowd size, how we feel about their actions.
We can write letters to the editors of our local newspapers to express our concerns.
We can enlist the help of our friends and families to also express these concerns.
We can respectfully post our reactions on social media and tag the SC Arts Commission so they are aware of our discontent.
You may be aware of other ways to make our voices heard and we invite you to share these methods with us and with your friends and colleagues.
We can do all these things or none, but we cannot stand by and let these people get their foot in the door when it comes to defining what is ideological, obscene, or descent. They have no more authority to change the interpretation of the English language than they do stand in judgement of something they don’t even try to understand.
Cindi Boiter
Founder, The Jasper Project
Editor, Jasper Magazine