23-05-2025
Who sabotaged the budget to promote ‘conversion therapy'? Columbia deserves answers.
LGBTQ+ advocate Cora Webb was among those who testified at City Hall in Columbia, S.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2025, urging the city to maintain its ban on conversion therapy for minors. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
There's an old horror story: the call is coming from inside the house. In Columbia, that chilling metaphor might not be far from reality — and this time, it's not a fictional villain on the line, but the possibility that someone elected to protect the city may have quietly worked to harm it from within.
Tuesday night Columbians of all stripes came out to tell the city: Don't repeal the ban on licensed healthcare providers giving minors so-called 'conversion therapy,' a discredited practice that seeks to force a change in sexual orientation or gender identity.
Residents who had been victims of the barbarous practice shared heart-rending stories. Mental health professionals, religious and secular residents, gay and straight alike spoke – all in defense of keeping this important ban in place.
City Council punted on the decision, giving residents and advocates a small reprieve.
After the council meeting, Mayor Daniel Rickenmann told reporters that city leaders had 'sequestered' hospitality and accommodations tax funding — bracing for the possibility that the state Legislature would withhold support.
That support, estimated at $3.7 million, now hangs in the balance because an ambitious, socially conservative senator from the Upstate disapproved of Columbia's policy to protect LGBTQ+ kids.
Acting in the wake of Attorney General Alan Wilson's letter, that senator inserted language into the Senate's version of the budget making Columbia's public funding a hostage to ideological retaliation.
And then a curious thing happened on Wednesday. After the conference committee completed its work of cobbling together the state budget, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Bruce Bannister — speaking about the inclusion of the proviso in their final package — said this about unnamed Columbia City Council members:
'They were supportive of us adopting the proviso … and that this would encourage their members to think a little harder about it.'
When a reporter asked if the mayor specifically talked with them, Bannister said, 'I don't – it was someone. I neither confirm nor deny who was doing the work on that end.'
That silence is deafening.
Because if it turns out that any member of Columbia City Council lobbied state lawmakers to deliberately deny the city funds as a backdoor tactic to force the repeal of its ban on conversion therapy, then what we are dealing with is not just an instance of political pressure. It is a civic betrayal of the highest order.
That being said, we can't lose focus. Columbia's ordinance banning conversion therapy — a practice condemned by every major medical and psychological association — is a life-affirming law designed to protect LGBTQ+ youth from psychological abuse masquerading as treatment. It took courage for City Council to enact it. Resistance to repealing the ordinance is paramount now more than ever.
However, if now, through backroom dealings and veiled threats, city officials are attempting to reverse that moral stand by threatening a $3.7 million cut to Columbia's public budget, then they have not only undermined public trust — they have weaponized the state budget against their own citizens and constituents.
That alone would be scandal enough. However, the intrigue doesn't seem to stop there. What makes it even more audacious is the decision to tie that political coercion to hospitality and accommodations tax (HTAX) funding.
HTAX funding is the fuel behind the festivals that draw visitors from across the Southeast. It's a support that keeps our local arts scene vibrant, our public events safe and staffed, our nonprofits operational, our parks clean, and our local businesses booming.
To tinker with that engine out of ideological spite — or worse, as a calculated move to pressure elected officials to fall in line — isn't just reckless. It's economically self-sabotaging.
This isn't just a game of political chess.
These are real dollars, real jobs, and real people whose lives depend on a functioning, forward-looking city government. And to even contemplate disrupting that system for the sake of dismantling protections for LGBTQ+ youth reveals a staggering disregard for both moral responsibility and fiscal stewardship.
If the rumors are true — if the mayor or other officials worked behind closed doors to cut Columbia off from state support in hopes of toppling a policy they couldn't defeat in open debate — then they must be held accountable. Not just at the ballot box, but in the court of public opinion and historical memory.
Because when elected leaders lobby against their own city's interests — when they betray the people they were sworn to serve — they don't just break public trust. They break the very foundation on which local democracy stands.
And that, no matter what the political calculus, is indefensible.
