On a recent Saturday evening service at the Potters House, an evangelical church on Columbus' outskirts, pastor Tim Oldfield begins his sermon by launching immediately into a jeremiad against homosexuality. "We're living in a time that a lifestyle that at one time was on the list of mental disorders, called sodomy, is now called an alternative lifestyle," he says. "The Bible calls it abomination. Abomination is something disgusting." An old woman in the audience nods and says, "Very disgusting."
The next morning, at Columbus' massive World Harvest Church, a purple curtain rises to reveal a purple- and white-robed choir, standing on a bridge 30 feet above the ground. Beneath them is a row of gospel singers in black suits flanked by two piano players. They perform a soft-rock/gospel hybrid, replete with electric guitar. Behind them is a black backdrop sparkling with pinpricks of light, like a starry sky at night. Colored lights sweep over the singers, turning from blue to green to yellow to red to purple. Two huge monitors show close-ups of the singers and of the ecstatic faces of thousands of worshippers who are about to hear how Jesus wants them to vote for Issue 1.
The congregation for the Sunday service is integrated. About 40 percent of those gathered are black, and there are several interracial couples. Remarkably few of the modest cars in the enormous parking lot sport Bush-Cheney stickers. I sit near a 29-year-old churchgoer named David, a hip-looking guy in faded jeans and spiky hair who works at Abercrombie and Fitch and who is there with two buddies. Some people are dressed in their Sunday best, but there are lots of sweat shirts and sneakers, too.
The singers perform for almost half an hour before pastor Rod Parsley appears onstage. A broad-shouldered white man with ripe lips and narrow eyes, he immediately starts speaking about the election, saying, "The nation has never been more divided and the choices have never been more clear ... the light is getting lighter and the dark is getting darker."
Before he goes into details, though, there is more singing, and the crowd starts swaying, many squeezing their eyes shut and throwing their arms beseechingly into the air, palms raised toward heaven. "You need to abandon yourself," Parsley shouts, urging people on to greater heights of ecstasy. "Don't let those aisles separate you!" At his words, people started dancing between the rows of pews.
He calls headache sufferers to the front of the auditorium. But as people watch them line up, he cries out, "Don't stop worshipping Him! Don't stop worshipping Him! Don't become a spectator!" Then, as thousands in the crowd keep dancing, he moves among those who have come forward, putting his hand on their foreheads. "In the presence of God I rebuke it," he says. "In the presence of God I rebuke it. In Jesus, I rebuke it. Lose it. Lose it. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Lose that."
The choir keeps singing and he keeps going, spewing glossolalia as he lays his hands on his flock. Some people fall back and are caught by ushers standing behind them. One woman paces the aisle, her hands above her head, looking up and sobbing.
Nearly an hour and a half passes before Parsley starts preaching in earnest to a crowd that is by then happily worn out and receptive. Christianity is under siege, he tells his audience. Interlopers from out of state have come to Ohio, "going door to door, knocking on doors so we can continue to murder babies and further strip the church of its First Amendment rights through hate crimes legislation." Gay marriage, he says, heralds "the annihilation of a civilization."
"Everybody shout yes on Issue 1!" he yells. "Yes on Issue 1!"
David tells me that Parsley's sermons haven't always been so overtly political. It's only since gay marriage became a hot issue that he's started delivering the Republican gospel. One of the ushers, an older, balding black man, says congregants have mixed feelings about the election. The economy is terrible, he says. "Some people lost everything they had." About the war, he adds, "Those kids shouldn't be over there." So would he be voting for Kerry? He wouldn't say.
Parsley's been preaching for over an hour and he's sweating. An organ trills behind him as he says, "On November 2, I see people marching like a holy army to the voting booth. I see the holy spirit anointing you as you vote for life, as you vote for marriage, as you vote for the pulpit!"
When I speak to Mamlin later that night, she imagines what would happen if she brought her kids to World Harvest Church and confronted Issue 1's proponents. "Do you have the courage to look into my child's eyes and tell him, 'You don't deserve the financial security that the kids next door have?'" she says. "Hate me, but not my son."
Inside the World Harvest Church, though, gay families are excoriated. Noon comes and goes on Sunday and Parsley is still talking about homosexuality. He holds up a children's book called "King and King," about two princes who fall in love. "They've come out with a sequel," he says, "'King and King and Family,' where they adopt children and their family is just as ordinary as their neighbors."
"No they're not!" shouts the crowd, unprompted.
After the service, I try to interview churchgoers on their way out. But before long, four security guards with walkie-talkies surround me and order me off the premises. In the moments before they get there, though, I speak to one elderly black woman, well-dressed but slightly stooped. "Are you going to vote for Bush because of gay marriage and abortion?" I ask her.
"Exactly," she says, a beatific smile on her face.
This story has been corrected since it was originally published.
About the writer
Michelle Goldberg is a senior writer for Salon based in New York.
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