The Appeal

"Where might this be going?" she asked.

"I’m getting there. Now, our two law students have found them, in Chicago, where Meyerchec owns a g*y bar and Spano works as an interior designer. The students are willing, for a little cash, to fly to Chicago, spend a few days, hang out in the bar, infiltrate, gather information."

"Information for what?"

"Information that, hopefully, will prove that they are not residents of this state; that their presence here was a sham; that someone is using them to exploit the g*y marriage issue; and maybe that they are not even a couple in Chicago. If we can prove that, then I’ll go to the Clarion-Ledger, the Biloxi Sun Herald, and every other newspaper in the state and deliver the goods.

We can’t win a fight on this issue, dear, but we can damned sure fight back."

She drained her glass and shook her head in disbelief. "Do you think Fisk is this smart?"

"Fisk is a pawn, but, yes, his handlers are this smart. It’s a cynical scheme, and it’s brilliant. No one thinks about g*y marriage here because it will never happen, then, suddenly, everybody’s talking about it. Frontpage news. Everybody’s scared.

Mothers are hiding their children. Politicians are blathering."

"But why use two g*y men from Chicago?"

"I’m not sure you can find two g*y men in Mississippi who want this kind of publicity.

Plus, g*ys here who are committed to tolerance understand the backlash from the straight world. The worst thing they could do is exactly what Meyerchec and Spano have done."

"If Meyerchec and Spano are g*y, why would they do something to hurt the cause?"

"Two reasons. First, they don’t live here. Second, money. Someone’s paying the bills-the apartment lease, the used car, the lawyer, and a few thousand bucks to Meyerchec and Spano for their time and trouble."

Sheila had heard enough. She glanced at her watch and said, "How much do they need?"

"Expense money-airfare, hotel, the basics. Two thousand."

"Do we have it?" she asked with a laugh.

"It’s out of my pocket. We’ll keep it off the books. I just want you to know what we’re doing."

"You have my approval."

"And the Frankie Hightower dissent?"

"I’m hard at work. Should take me another two months."

"Now you’re talking like a real supreme court justice."

Denny Ott received a left-handed invitation to the meeting when a fellow preacher mentioned it to him over coffee one morning at Babe’s. Not every minister in town was invited. Two from the Methodist churches and the Presbyterian pastor were specifically excluded, but it appeared as if all others were welcome. There was no Episcopal church in Bowmore, and if the town had a single Catholic, he or she had yet to come forward.

It was held on a Thursday afternoon in the fellowship hall of a fundamentalist congregation called Harvest Tabernacle. The moderator was the church’s pastor, a fiery young man who was generally known as Brother Ted. After a quick prayer, he welcomed his fellow ministers, sixteen in number, including three black ministers. He cast a wary eye at Denny Ott, but said nothing about his presence.

Brother Ted quickly got down to business. He had joined the Brotherhood Coalition, a newly formed collection of fundamentalist preachers throughout south Mississippi.

It was their purpose to quietly and methodically do everything possible, within the Lord’s will, to elect Ron Fisk and thus kill off any chance of same-sex marriages occurring in Mississippi. He ranted on about the evils of homosexuality and its growing acceptability in American society. He quoted the Bible when appropriate, his voice rising with indignation when necessary. He stressed the urgency of electing godly men to all public positions and promised that the Brotherhood would be a force for years to come.

Denny listened with a straight face but growing alarm. He’d had several conversations with the Paytons and knew the real issues behind the race. The manipulation and marketing of Fisk made him sick. He glanced at the other ministers and wondered how many funerals they had held for people killed by Krane Chemical. Cary County should be the last place to embrace the candidacy of someone like Ron Fisk.

Brother Ted grew sufficiently pious when he moved to the subject of Sheila McCarthy.

She was a Catholic from the Coast, which in rural Christian circles meant she was a woman of loose morals. She was divorced. She liked to party, and there were rumors of boyfriends. She was a hopeless liberal, opposed to the death penalty, and could not be trusted when faced with decisions dealing with g*y marriage and illegal immigration and the like.

When he finished his sermon, someone suggested that perhaps churches should not become so involved in politics. This was met with general disapproval. Brother Ted jumped in with a brief lecture about the culture wars and the courage they should have to fight for God.

It’s time for Christians to get off the sidelines and charge into the arena. This led to a fervent discussion about the erosion of values. Blame was placed on television, Hollywood, the Internet. The list grew long and ugly.

What was their strategy? someone asked.

Organization! Church folk outnumbered the heathen in south Mississippi, and the troops must be mobilized. Campaign workers, door knockers, poll watchers. Spread the message from church to church, house to house. The election was only three weeks away. Their movement was spreading like wildfire.

After an hour, Denny Ott could take no more. He excused himself, drove to his office at the church, and called Mary Grace.

The MTA directors met in an emergency session two days after the Fisk campaign launched its waves of anti-gay-marriage ads. The mood was somber. The question was obvious:

How did such an issue take center stage? And what could the McCarthy campaign do to counter the attack? Nat Lester was present and gave a summary of their plans for the final three weeks. McCarthy had $700,000 to fight with, much less than Fisk.

Half of her budget was already committed to television ads that would begin running in twenty-four hours. The remainder was for direct mail and some last-minute radio and TV spots. After that, they were out of money. Small donations were coming from labor, conservationists, good-government groups, and a few of the more moderate lobbying organizations, but 92 percent of McCarthy’s funds were mailed in by trial lawyers.

Nat then summarized the latest poll. The race was a dead heat with the two front-runners at 30 percent, with the same number of voters still undecided. Coley remained around 10 percent. However, the poll was conducted the week before and did not reflect any shift due to the g*y marriage ads. Because of those ads, Nat would begin polling over the weekend.

Not surprisingly, the trial lawyers had wild and varied opinions about what to do.

All of their ideas were expensive, Nat continually reminded them. He listened to them argue. Some had sensible ideas, others were radical. Most assumed they knew more about campaigns than the others, and all of them took for granted that whatever course of action they finally agreed on would be immediately embraced by the McCarthy campaign.

Nat did not share with them some depressing gossip. A reporter from the Biloxi newspaper had called that morning with a few questions. He was exploring a story about the raging new issue of same-sex marriages. During the course of a ten-minute interview, he told Nat that the largest television station on the Coast had sold $1 million in prime air-time to the Fisk campaign for the remaining three weeks. It was believed to be the largest sale ever in a political race.

One million dollars on the Coast meant at least that much for the rest of the markets.