Editor’s note: This story is a compilation of Smoky Mountain News Politics Editor Cory Vaillancourt’s pop-up daily dispatches, “Via Chicago,” originally published online from the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago the week of Aug. 19. 

To the Editor:

I have no hatred towards anyone who chooses a different lifestyle than me. The vast majority of Americans do not care about an individual's sexual preference or what books they read.

To the Editor:

Trans person filmed in WCU bathroom ... that’s false information. There are no trans persons. 

The Town of Sylva Board of Commissioners signed a proclamation last week declaring June to be LGBTQ Pride Month, just weeks after the board denied Sylva Pride’s application for its annual march.

In its final week of classes, Western Carolina University became the subject of a video that went viral on social media in which a trans woman was filmed inside a women’s bathroom on campus. 

They couldn’t be more different. But it’s not about race, religion or party affiliation. 

Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, and Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, a Republican, present strikingly different views not only on their priorities if elected governor but also on the 30,000-foot view of what North Carolina is and will be. 

After the Sylva Town Council denied Sylva Pride’s road closure application for the annual Pride Parade, the community organization has decided to hold “Chalk About It,” to talk to community members and garner input on the best path forward. 

On Thursday night, Sylva community members marched to the town council meeting to show their disappointment in a recent vote to not allow the annual Sylva Pride event to close part of Main Street for a parade. 

The Sylva Pride celebration will look a little different this year after the Sylva Town Board denied the group’s road closure application for its fourth annual Pride Parade, despite support for the event from much of the downtown business community. 

What started as a group of citizens concerned about certain LGBTQ books in the Macon County Library has turned into an effort to pull the library from the Fontana Regional Library system, a move that could get very complicated and very expensive, very quickly.