A video is making the rounds in Iowa political circles, and it features a Democratic congressional candidate telling a story she probably wishes had stayed out of the news cycle.
Sarah Trone Garriott, the Democrat looking to unseat Republican Rep. Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, delivered the remarks herself at a public storytelling event.
The footage captures her walking an audience through one of the stranger episodes of her time as a minister in training — the day she was called upon to help marry a couple who identified as satanists.
Iowa’s 3rd is no political backwater. Analysts have placed the race in toss-up territory, making every development in the contest between Garriott and Nunn a potential factor in the balance of power in Washington.
The ceremony did not take place in Iowa. Garriott placed the story in a small town in West Virginia, where she was completing her ministerial training under a supervising pastor.
That pastor, she explained, was the one who brought the couple to her attention and assigned her a role in the proceedings.
The couple came from her congregation. They were open about their beliefs.
And according to Garriott’s own account, they made little effort to hide their disdain for the church they were standing inside.
“These people could barely stand us,” Garriott told her audience. “They didn’t believe in or really have any respect for what mattered to us.”
The supervising pastor asked Garriott to select the scripture readings for the ceremony. Her reaction, by her own description, was not enthusiasm.
“He asked me to pick the Scriptures,” she said. “Irritated, I flipped through the Bible. Should I pick something with Satan in it to make them feel more at home?”
She landed on 1 Corinthians 13 — arguably the most recognized passage read at Christian wedding ceremonies in America. The choice, she made clear, was deliberate in its plainness.
“If you have ever been to a Christian wedding, you’ve probably heard this Scripture,” Garriott said. “All they would get from me was [a] basic Lutheran wedding.”
The groom arrived at the altar with a pentagram tattooed on his face. Garriott stood before the couple and read the words anyway. “Love is patient; love is kind.” What happened next gave her pause.
“Was he getting teary?” she recounted. “They had a lot of baggage between the two of them, but there was no denying how they were looking at each other.”
She later reflected on the passage itself, and what she believed it meant in that setting.
“When the Apostle Paul wrote these words, he certainly never had in mind a small town in West Virginia, two satanists and a Lutheran pastor in training,” Garriott said. “But Paul knew people, and people haven’t changed that much over the centuries. It is hard to love one another. We often need to be reminded how.”
The couple never came back. “So what happened to that couple? I have no idea,” she said. “We never saw them again.”
Republicans wasted no time. Nunn’s campaign had already drawn a target on Garriott over prior statements, arguing her public positions clash with the Christian identity she presents to Iowa voters.
Nunn put it plainly: “She’s made it clear that the values Iowa families live by every single day are the ones she’s running against.”
Garriott’s campaign answered the criticism with a statement to Fox News, placing responsibility squarely on the pastor who oversaw her training.
“As a minister in training, Sarah followed the direction of her supervising pastor and had no control over who walked through the church’s doors — it was her job to minister to everyone, including people she does not share beliefs with,” the statement read.
The campaign also framed the episode as consistent with her faith.
“Like so many Iowa Christians, Sarah’s faith calls her to love thy neighbor, and she follows Jesus’ example of embodying his grace for everyone.”
Whether Iowa voters accept that framing — or whether Nunn’s campaign successfully uses the story to define her before Election Day — remains a question that will be answered at the ballot box.
