No, Councilman. My request for the public to email a peer wasn’t a call to violence | Opinion
I recently criticized the Columbia City Council’s capitulation to coercive state officials who, in an egregious violation of home rule, threatened the city with legal action and a loss of state funding if it didn’t repeal a four-year-old ban on the widely discredited practice of conversion therapy on minors, which attempts to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of anyone under 18.
At the end of my column, I urged readers to email Councilman Will Brennan, the swing vote of the council’s 4-3 decision to repeal the ban, and to copy me because I might publish their comments. I wrote that a second vote is required to finalize the repeaI and that, perhaps, Brennan would reconsider if he heard from enough people.
I got emails from people supporting his vote and others who want the council to reconsider and keep the ban. I also heard from Councilman Peter Brown, who asked me to rescind the request for readers to email Brennan because he may receive threats.
“This has become a very divisive and potentially dangerous situation with Activists calling and texting ‘threats’ to our elected officials,” he wrote. “Maybe you think we live in a different world, but I consider your actions a call to continue this vitriol and potential violence toward an elected official. Your addition of gasoline to this fire should be rethought and reconsidered and, frankly, is just unacceptable as a representative of the media and this community. I hope you will take a more professional approach as the Opinion Editor going forward.”
I replied to say I found parts of his email unacceptable for a public servant.
‘Columbia chickened out’
Before I get into that, let me share what readers said about what I see as a dangerous precedent Columbia is setting for municipalities across South Carolina that may now be subjected to coercion on any number of issues where local leaders for any number of reasons might be at odds with state officials.
“I heartily agree with your analysis,” one reader wrote to me. “Columbia chickened out in the face of bullying!”
“Council did the right thing in 2021,” another wrote to Councilman Brennan, copying me. “You did the right thing with your vote then and you need to do it again now. Your affirming vote is a vote in support of Home Rule. Your capitulation to extortion is a step on the road to yielding control to the right wing in the Legislature.”
A third reader who lives in Brennan’s council district emailed him and copied me to express disappointment in his vote and ask him to reconsider.
“I feel it is important to point out that while providing other forms of support for young people who are LBGTQ and increasing efforts to stop abuse are good steps for the city of Columbia to take, the conversion ban is designed to avoid a specific form of harm. As a psychologist trained to provide therapy and someone who has seen therapists myself, I am well aware of the potential for harm from damaging, inappropriate therapy techniques like conversion therapy.
“I also know that there are many people in the State House who are hostile to people who are LGBTQ. If Columbia repeals the conversion therapy ban due to their pressure, what is to stop them from next cutting funding for municipalities that hold Pride parades, or have community centers for LGBTQ youth like the Harriet Hancock Center?”
‘The correct decision’
“Thank you, Will, for having the courage of your convictions,” another reader wrote the councilman, disagreeing with me. “Our Columbia streets are a war zone. Murders, assaults, drug dealers preying on innocent citizens. We spend an inordinate amount of time on woke policies as our people get slaughtered in the streets.”
“I respectfully disagree with your position on City Council’s overturn of the ban,” another wrote to me. “I supported the decision 4 years ago to implement the ban, and like most, quickly forgot about it. Undoubtedly, conversion therapy is a disgraceful, harmful, ineffective practice. It also was and is EXCEEDINGLY rare… I dare say practically nonexistent, within the city. Council’s vote was a nice gesture. Undoubtedly symbolic. But ‘fixed’ a nonexistent problem.
“Too,” the email continued, “shame on (state Sen.) Josh Kimbrell and (state Attorney General) Alan Wilson, both spineless politicians, for meddling in our capital city’s affairs, possibly violating home rule precedents.
“But as things stand now, the Legislature seems to hold the upper hand in this matter. I don’t think it is wise for ‘purple’ Columbia to pick a fight with an overwhelmingly red Legislature. So Council was faced with an unfortunate dilemma and massive distraction, and I believe, made the correct decision.”
Otherwise, he wrote, “not just this year, but next year and the next ... REAL, PAINFUL budget decisions would have to be made.”
A view of public service
These emails to Councilman Brennan and me were what I’d hoped: They argued points of view but did so respectfully, though one labeled me incorrectly as a left-winger (I’m not; I’m socially liberal and fiscally conservative) and further mislabeled me as delusional and dishonest.
I get a lot of emails like that. Sadly, readers don’t always disagree agreeably. I’ve also gotten my share of threats over 30-plus years in an industry where too many readers relay really vitriolic messages to journalists who increasingly face a lot of abuse for trying to do ethical work honestly, accurately and independently. It’s one of the reasons why my views of the First Amendment and freedom of speech are so strong. Nasty notes come with the territory.
I try to write back within 24 hours when I get an email. But if it’s cruel, it’s a short conversation.
Back to Councilman Brown, who copied the mayor, council members, the city manager and the police chief in his email to me so they “can monitor these emails to Councilman Brennan.”
I thanked Councilman Brown for his email and said I appreciated him reading to the end of a long column.
Then I wrote, “It appears, however, that the two of us view public service and public emails quite differently.”
I wrote, “I consider it unacceptable that a representative of the City Council would view my publication of a public email, that is on the city’s website no less, as a ‘call to continue this vitriol and potential violence towards an elected official’ and an ‘addition of gasoline to this fire.’ Threats should not be tolerated. And wouldn’t be, as we both know. So we’re clear: My column is not intended, nor should it be construed, as a call to violence. It’s the opposite: a call for the public to interact peaceably with their elected public officials.
“Perhaps you are unaware that any emailed or texted threat could easily be traced and an offender punished to the fullest extent of the law. If you were unaware, I hope that sets your mind more at ease. Perhaps you are also unaware of the fate of my predecessor, N.G. Gonzales. If you were unaware, I encourage you to read about his life and death. Given murders like his and given the more than three decades I have spent in journalism myself, I’m well aware of where to draw the line on acceptable and unacceptable public participation.
“I’d encourage you, respectfully, to reconsider where you draw it if you think the publication of a public email is a violation of journalistic ethics and professionalism I take very seriously.”
A request for the city
I finished my email with a request for the city.
“Separately, I’d like to request under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act copies of any and all threatening emails, calls and text messages sent to any council members about the conversion therapy ban. If you’d prefer to redact the names or email addresses or other identifying information in such messages, I trust that you would still send along the contents of these messages so that I could report that such messages are in fact being sent and I can criticize them and urge people not to send threats of any nature in a subsequent column.
“On this we agree: Vitriol and violence have no place in Columbia or anywhere,” I ended the email. “I’ve CC’d everyone you did so the same group can see my response and request, and I look forward to the city’s response to my request. Thank you all very much for your public service.”
One more thing: If you, dear reader, knowing that threats will not be tolerated, want to email Councilman Brown, to ask him to reconsider his support of repealing the conversion therapy ban or to rethink his views on public email, his address is peter.brown@columbiasc.gov. If you’d like to CC me on your message to him — and, again, be respectful — I’m at mhall@thestate.com.
This story was originally published June 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "No, Councilman. My request for the public to email a peer wasn’t a call to violence | Opinion."