The South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) voted 5-3 in a virtual meeting without public comment on Thursday to deny a $13,000 grant to the Greenville Gay Men’s Chorus and a nearly $4,000 grant to Spartanburg’s Proud Mary Theatre Company, despite approving $3.7 million in taxpayer-funded grants to over 170 other arts organizations, The South Carolina Daily Gazette reported.

Emails from the commission board members show that they denied grants to the groups because they disapproved of the alleged “agendas” of “organizations structured around specific sexual orientations,” including any support for “drag performances.” The state’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and representatives from both denied groups see the board’s decision as a form of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. The chorus is considering legal options to challenge the commission’s decision.

The SCAC had reportedly promised funding to both groups in August, the South Carolina Post and Courier reported, before then requiring them, the only two LGBTQ-focused arts groups under consideration, to resubmit their budgets and explanations of their organizations’ artistic merit. The groups were also forced to answer SCAC questions in a September 18 closed-door meeting during which they were reportedly asked if they worked with K-12 schools. The South Carolina ACLU said the meeting may have been illegal.

In September, the SCAC also released a resolution that said, “No person or entity that receives grant funding from the Commission shall, in any work funded in whole or in part by grant funds administered by or received from the Commission, promote any ideology without regard to what that ideology might be.”