CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A Wilmington man who once ran for City Council there and has described himself as “a concerned citizen that specializes in debunking the fraud of ‘transgenderism’ for elected officials,” has sent a legal notice to the Orange County governments demanding that they remove the rainbow flag from their properties.
Napier Fuller has demanded that the Orange County Courthouse, as well as the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, remove the flags. He’s also said he’s in the process of filing a permanent injunction that would prohibit the governments, as well as the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, from displaying rainbow flags or other materials that he alleges favors one viewpoint over another.
The Daily Tar Heel was the first to report the story. According to the paper:
According to the demand sent by Napier Fuller, who lives in Wilmington, rainbow flags and stickers are currently on display in public places such as the Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough. He argued that these displays show a government preference toward one set of beliefs and cited U.S. Supreme Court cases such as County of Allegheny vs. American Civil Liberties Union (1989) to support his claim that a government cannot support one belief over another. In his demand, Fuller claimed this ruling includes secular movements such as what he refers to as the “acceptance” of “same-sex eroticism.”
Fuller’s demand isn’t necessarily actionable. Orange County Attorney John Roberts told the Chapel Hill newspaper that the board of commissioners often receives legal demands, but they don’t count as official complaints. Roberts didn’t comment on whether the demand had any legal standing.
Fuller has a long history of anti-LGBTQ antagonism. He’s currently involved in a legal case in which he’s accused of cyberstalking and harassment, after emailing messages to UNC staff and faculty regarding his beliefs on transgender equality. The emails contained a link to an anti-transgender website with graphic images of heterosexual, cisgender sex positions, apparently in an effort to show argue that sexual relations can only be achieved among cisgender male and female people.
The Wilmington resident is also involved in several other court cases and legal challenges, detailed by The Daily Tar Heel.
The towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro are considered by many to be among the most LGBTQ-friendly cities in the state. Both towns, as well as Orange County as a whole, have produced high-profile LGBTQ community leaders and elected officials, including the Chapel Hill Town Councilmember Joe Herrzenberg, the first openly gay person elected in the South. The late Herzenberg, who passed in 2007, was recently honored in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Carrboro is currently led by lesbian Mayor Lydia Lavelle.