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Saturday 23 of November 2024

Emails show author Sparks objecting to pro-gay 'agenda'


AP Photo, Nicholas Sparks,FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2016, file photo, novelist Nicholas Sparks attends a special screening of
AP Photo, Nicholas Sparks,FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2016, file photo, novelist Nicholas Sparks attends a special screening of "The Choice" in Los Angeles. Sparks chastised a former headmaster at the private Christian school in North Carolina he runs for promoting a pro-gay “agenda,” according to emails pertaining to an ongoing lawsuit. Sparks denies he discriminates. The emails were published Thursday, June 13, 2019, by the Daily Beast and are available through the federal court’s online record system. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Emails filed in an ongoing lawsuit show novelist Nicholas Sparks chastised a former headmaster at the private Christian school in North Carolina he runs for promoting a pro-gay “agenda.” Sparks denies he discriminates.

The emails, published Thursday by the Daily Beast and filed as exhibits in federal lawsuit in North Carolina, show Sparks complaining in 2013 about “an agenda that strives to make homosexuality open and accepted.” The emails are part a case between Sparks and former headmaster Saul Hillel Benjamin, who alleges that Sparks defamed him. Benjamin headed the college-prep K-12 school for a few months before being forced out.

In a statement issued through his publicist, Sparks says the Daily Beast story repeats “false accusations” and noted that charges of discrimination originally in the lawsuit have been dropped.