Famed British writer and wit Oscar Wilde once described the notoriously cruel sport of fox
hunting — a popular pastime among the not-so-noble noblemen of his era — as “the unspeakable chasing the uneatable.”
South Carolinians who’ve been watching state Attorney General Alan Wilson’s months-long pursuit of the city of Columbia over its ordinance banning conversion-therapy quackery could be forgiven for viewing the whole ambition-soaked spectacle with similar contempt. Because at this point, it’s all just a culture war fox hunt for the benefit of Republican primary voters.
And what’s worse, this week’s bitter and divided Columbia City Council vote to repeal the ban will only whet the appetite of Wilson’s hunting party heading into next year’s elections.
But before we get to the politics — and as always these days, you can safely bet your last dollar that that’s what this contrived controversy is all about — let’s briefly back up to see how we got here.
The story, like so many tales of no good deed going unpunished, begins in 2021, when the citizens and leaders of Columbia saw a wrong and tried to right it. Specifically, the wrong they saw was the thoroughly discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy for minors — a mean-spirited lie that promises to make gay and trans teenagers, well, not gay or trans anymore. Or at least to convince them to smile politely while they get pushed back into the closet.
So Columbia City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting licensed counselors from providing the service. And perhaps understanding that it might violate state law, which preempts cities from regulating medical therapies, they let it stand, largely unenforced, as a symbol of the city’s values.
Which was good enough for Wilson and his fellow culture warriors in the legislature for the next four years. After all, they all know a thing or two about leaving unenforced laws on the books. In fact, Wilson himself had to settle a 2022 lawsuit by removing violators of the state’s 1712 sodomy law from the state’s sex offender registry — a law that was found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court more than 20 years ago and remains in the state code to this day.
But with Gov. Henry McMaster term-limited going into next year’s elections, Wilson apparently wasn’t going to let rank hypocrisy get in the way of his shameless courting of culturally conservative GOP primary voters. So he fired off a letter to the city of Columbia in April demanding that the ordinance be repealed. And the legislature piled on by holding nearly $4 million in state aid hostage if the city refused to back down.
So here we stand, watching as Wilson and his salivating hounds in the Statehouse finish off their Columbia fox in the name of upholding the law. Talk about unspeakable.
If there’s any conversion therapy South Carolina really needs these days, it’s political — the kind that turns a 2026 gubernatorial campaign into a long goodbye.
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