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I’m opposed to this ordinance,” Godzich admits.
He begins to roll, the timbre of his voice rising and ebbing with the elastic, jazzy rhythms of preacherspeak. And I’d like to clarify something. A radio disc jockey recently called me a `homophobic’ person and I just want to let people know that those who know me know I’m anything but. Some years ago, when AIDS first appeared on the scene, I started the first Christian spirit-filled ministry to people with AIDS in the United States. … One could hardly call me homophobic when I’ve carried people to an ambulance when ambulance workers have refused to do so. I’ve taken people in homosexuality, dying of AIDS, whose families have rejected them, into my personal home.”
Though he loves those who are wrestling with their homosexuality, Leo Godzich insists their homosexuality is a moral cancer.
ON THE MONDAY before Easter, a little before 6:30 p.m., the parking lots of Phoenix First Assembly of God are teeming with the bright, modest cars and sensible minivans of the faithful. More than 6,000 people, in familial clumps of three, four or five, thread their way toward the sixth-largest church in America’s coliseum-size sanctuary, toward a production of the Celebration of Easter” passion play. One debarks and dips into the current, trusting the herd and the men in the orange vests controlling traffic with flashlights.
Almost immediately Pastor Leo” appears, threading through a clumpy flow of families looking for their pews. His eyes are clear of the small, mad fires of zealotry. As the trousers of his pinstriped blue suit break sweetly over the tops of his black cowboy boots, his white shirt and dark tie semaphore conventional respectability. Pastor Godzich’s manner is professional, collegial, falling somewhere between that of a capable concierge and a good-government” candidate for insurance commissioner.
Here, in this spiritual theme park, Godzich is a man in control, accustomed to deferential nods and quick attentions. He navigates the auditorium within a bubble of competence, whispering instructions in ears and touching shoulders, subtly steering the evening into place.
More than 500 church members, along with several horses, a camel, a tiger and a few other assorted beasts, will play roles in tonight’s production. A 60-piece orchestra-including eight hired musicians-will provide music. Angels, their faces glazed with a sparkly dust, will dangle from the 65-foot-high ceilings, and two large television boards will afford the back rows with close-ups of the action. Tonight’s electric bill will top $2,000, and many of the people who see tonight’s show will come back to see one of the eight remaining performances later in the week.
No wonder Godzich sees such splendid potential in these pews. In an era when most churches have backed off overt political activity, Phoenix First Assembly has become more activist.
Godzich is one of a dozen full-time pastors on the church’s staff, and he handles the church’s public relations and special projects as well as his AIDS ministry. He sees the church as an instrument for molding the social and political agenda of the country.
As an Assemblies of God affiliate, Phoenix First Assembly retains local control over its doctrine, giving its pastors the flexibility to move the flock in whatever direction theyÏnot some national council-deem necessary. And as members of an evangelical church, they see the largest part of their mission as bringing people into communion with Jesus Christ, the Son of Man. The more they save, the more the church grows. Bigger and richer-and more politically potentÏare not necessarily things to be avoided.
As the orchestra honks and booms its way into tune, Godzich slips noiselessly into his seat, the lightest tremor of childlike excitement visible on his lips.
Wait ’til you see this,” he whispers.
Bedecked in biblical costume, 500 singers and dancers begin to reenact the final weeks in the life of Christ. At Phoenix First Assembly, the show is a cross between Peter Greenaway and Walt Disney.
A stunt man dives off a balcony. Fountains blast water 30 feet in the air. A blood-covered Jesus drags his cross through the sanctuary as hundreds taunt and jeer him. An hour and 50 minutes later, after a crucifixion and the passing of many velvet collection bags, the Christ character is hoisted nearly seven stories high and disappears into the church’s ceiling.
Along with 6,000 others, Godzich stands and applauds.
Every year, every performance, we try to do a little bit more,” he confides.
WHEN THE Celebration of Easter” is over, Leo Godzich breaks bread. Retiring to the Pointe Hilton at Tapatio Cliffs, the pastor offers insights into his cosmic agenda while sipping coffee and feasting on white-chocolate mousse cake drenched with raspberry sauce.
He is 33, the age at which Christ was crucified, and he was trained as a journalist. He graduated from City University of New York, interned at Newsweek magazine, where he contributed to some Abscam stories in 1979, then settled in as the editor of a business weekly in New Jersey. For a while he was a travel writer. That was unsatisfying, he says, so he became a computer consultant, moving west about six years ago.
He says he had enjoyed Phoenix when he visited it during his travel-writing days, and that he had talked about moving here with his family. Soon afterward he became affiliated with Phoenix First Assembly. Two of his brothers, Dan and John, followed soon afterward. (Both are active in Republican politics. John Godzich is the finance chairman of the state Republican party, and Dan Godzich is working on conservative Doug Wead’s campaign for Congress.)
It was not long after Godzich arrived in the Valley that he says he was called” to work with the AIDS-stricken. He says he prayed that God would lead him to a ministry. One day he overheard the Reverend Tommy Barnett, the church’s chief pastor, talking about ministries reaching out to hurting people.”
That evening Godzich says he experienced a two- or three-second vision of himself hugging an emaciated AIDS patient.
I guess I was pretty much a typical jock type in college,” he says, his voice drained of mannerism. You know, a lot of gay jokes, locker-room stuff. I was probably one of the most unlikely people to start an AIDS ministry. When I told my wife about it, she said it must be the Lord speaking to me.”
In the past few years, Godzich says he and his wife, Molly, have counseled more than 100 AIDS patients, visiting them in hospitals, supplying companionship and often the human contact they’ve been denied. He recently married two HIV-positive people in a quiet ceremony.
Godzich sounds humane and nonjudgmental when he discusses the people to whom he ministers. He concedes there are people who have a proclivity” for homosexuality, but he rejects the naturalness of these desires. Christ can heal homosexuality as surely as He can heal AIDS.
My ministry to AIDS patients is a ministry directly to Jesus, and that’s the way that I approach it,” Godzich says on an instructional tape designed to help other churches develop similar ministries. Some of the situations that you will run into are vile, disgusting, sin-ridden and not what you’d like to see. But many of the situations are not that way…and it’s a common misconception in the church today that AIDS relates totally or primarily to people who are involved inÏsteeped in-sin. That’s not generally the case. These are just hurting people.|.|.who the world has turned its back on.”
Godzich shoulders the mantle of spokesmanship effortlessly. He understands why others have identified him as the man to see-after all, he knows how to cite scripture and lobby the legislature with equal ease. Offhandedly he mentions that he would rather not have his modest car described in the story, because it’s already been targeted” by some of the more militant gay groups. He briefly alludes to telephone threats he says he’s received, brushing them off so lightly that it’s obvious he’s not afraid. Or that he wants to create the impression he’s not afraid.
I’ve had two death threats [since the public hearing],” he says. Unfortunately, I’ve had to change to an unlisted phone number. My wife doesn’t need to be subjected to this.”
Though Godzich’s public role has been low-key, Frank Meliti and other anti-amendment organizers give the pastor credit for derailing the proposal last December. Then the council eventually decided to pass the compromised version that prevents the city from discriminating against gays, and sent the original amendment back to the Human Relations Commission for more study.
Leo banged the mayor hard and heavy,” Meliti says. In fact, I credit him for probably changing the mayor’s attitude toward this whole thing. The mayor knew he had a hot potato.”
Mayor Johnson says he remembers Godzich as an articulate spokesperson for that side.”
I think I’ve only met with him twice,” Johnson says. He came in to talk to us with a group of other people. We met with people on both sides of the issue trying to understand their points of view. He just seemed more reserved, and not as angry.”
But while Johnson says he never considered the issue in baldly political terms, Godzich insists letting politicians know that an issue is going to be controversial is most of the battle in Arizona.
How should I put this?” Godzich says, gesturing with his fork. We have here a naive, a very naive, style of politics. It’s like the guys in college or high school who were running for student council. Basically they got elected because there wasn’t anyone who didn’t like them. It’s the same thing here. … What you have to do is show these people that a lot of people won’t like them if they take a certain action.” That’s why, Godzich says, the amendment almost sneaked through last December. It was admittedly rushed through committee by lame-duck councilmember Linda Nadolski because she wanted to do the right thing” before her term expired. It didn’t work. Both sides of the issue turned out in force at the December 18 council meeting in which the issue was to be discussed. Councilmember Alan Kennedy claimed he first learned about the proposed amendment through a newspaper story a week before. Though a day before the meeting Nadolski said she believed she had enough votes to carry the amendment, the motion failed by a 5-4 margin. Kennedy’s compromise motion, which applied only to the City of Phoenix, not to all employers within the city, was then adopted.
The homosexual lobby was lobbying for this thing a long time,” Meliti says. They tried to sneak it through, and it didn’t get through because we found out about it. We outmaneuvered them.”
But that was simply the first battle. Godzich insists that he did not turn people out” for the March 26 hearing, that, in fact, he tried to dissuade people from speaking if all they were going to do was repeat the litany of familiar complaints. He charges that he was double-crossed by commission members who asked him to hold down the crowd as much as possible while the homosexual lobby” was busing in sympathizers from other parts of the state and country. (Each side accuses the other of bringing people to the hearing in buses, and each side denies it bused anyone to the hearing. Everyone agrees there were buses there.)
Even so, Godzich admits drafting many of the statements read by people who spoke against the amendment. And his Kids First organization let people know the hearing was going on. Homosexual activists have reported an anticipated turnout of between 200 and 1,000 individuals, and opposition to the approval of this ordinance predicts similar numbers,” a Kids First press release, faxed to news organizations the day of the hearing, quoted Godzich as saying.
Still, though Godzich says the other side didn’t abide by rules established for the hearing, his side came prepared. Now he hands over a thick packet of material he drafted for the hearing, including many 90-second statements that were not read.
You can attribute anything in these to me,” he says.
Each of the comments bites off a small piece of the issue, nicking away at testimony offered by the other side’s experts. Godzich filed a lengthy set of arguments with the commission, though he doubts it will have any impact on the nonelected citizens who serve on the body. He knows the real arena is the council chambers, not Civic Plaza.
He knows moral indignation will not carry the day, that it must be backed up with the threat of real consequences. And that 20,000 souls can be a righteous force in this politically apathetic suburb that took steroids.”
There may be a Phoenix city tax revolt [if the amendment passes],” Godzich predicts. He says he knows of at least six companies that will relocate to Scottsdale or Mesa if the ban on discriminating against gays goes through. Two businessmenÏCraig Smith and Fred Deiderly, the chiropractor-said as much at the public hearing. And the Reverend Godzich understands that for some people, the thought of an eroding tax base may be more terrifying than eternal damnation.
Candidly, though he’s willing to admit his reliance on secular strategies and tactics, he confesses his real motivation is moral conviction. He sees the infiltration of gays into government and culture as a harbinger of the decay of America and, ironically enough, insists that the Reagan administration opened the doors for homosexuals in the federal bureaucracy. Now, he says, there’s almost a stigma attached to being heterosexual at some levels of government service.
Among the documents he passes across the table is a seven-page screed with the title Backgrounder.” Frank Meliti also supplied this document, though in slightly different form. It purports to present facts to help citizens make up their minds” about homosexuals. The document claims that, according to the Gay Rights Platform drawn up at the National Coalition of Gay Organizations Convention, Chicago, 1972,” gays and lesbians are committed to such goals as the repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent” and the legalization of prostitution. It also cites studies” showing that gays are much more promiscuous,” much more pedophilic” and much more abusive” than heterosexuals.
Data from several studies suggest that, when data from both genders are combined, homosexuals are at least 8 to 12 times more likely to molest children than heterosexuals,” the Godzich-provided document reads. Another set of data indicates that homosexual teachers are at least five times more likely to make sexual advances toward and at least seven times more likely to have sexual contact with their students than their heterosexual counterparts.” Though he eschews the rhetoric, Leo Godzich believes the lifestyles adopted by gays and lesbians are satanically inspired. And he sees a homosexual conspiracy” in Arizona, and throughout the country, designed to trash the moral rules. Though he knows such talk can sound wacky, and he knows the value of a logical representation of this argument,” Leo Godzich believes what he believes, he prays and he fasts, and he aspires to be an awesome man of God.
But tonight he simply finishes his mousse cake, puts down his fork and beams the sated smile of success.
LAST MONDAY, May 18, the Human Relations Commission recommended that `sexual orientation’ be included as a protected class under the antidiscrimination ordinance.” A proposed draft of the commission’s report obtained by New Times urges the council to absorb the political risks and stand up and do what’s right.”
This remains a divisive issue,” the report reads. Emotion can be louder than reason. Discussion can bring more heat than light. But the Commission and ultimately the Council should act clearly and without equivocation.”
At press time, some insiders were predicting that Calvin Goode, the chairman of the council’s Youth and Family Subcommittee, would have trouble finding the necessary three votes to bring it before the full council. Supporters of the amendment, however, say they are confident the amendment will survive the subcommittee, but they’re pessimistic about its chances with the council.
Some gay-rights activists believe that if the subcommittee passes the amendment on to the full council, Mayor Johnson could add it to the agenda for the May 20 meeting. And they think that it will be defeated.
Right now there appear to be only three votes in favor of the amendment. Councilmembers Goode, Mary Rose Wilcox and Craig Tribken are on the record supporting its passage. Thelda Williams and Skip Rimsza both accepted help from the gay community in their most recent campaigns, but voted against the amendment last December. Newcomers Kathy Dubs and Frances Barwood have voiced reservations about the amendment, and John Nelson is seen as a strong opponent. Mayor Johnson is also on the record as opposing the amendment at this time.”
Public sentiment is equally hard to read. Godzich notes that both the Phoenix Gazette and Arizona Republic have editorialized in favor of the amendment, but he says he understood letters to the council ran at least 11-to-1 against it. (The commission’s report notes that both sides conducted letter-writing campaigns and gives opponents a 3-to-2 lobbying edge. Godzich claims to have personally delivered a batch of 400 letters opposing the amendment that apparently were not considered by the commission.)
But the pastor, who weeks earlier had seemed sure Goode would be unable to bring the amendment back to council, now seems resigned to uncertainty. He says he will ask to address the subcommittee, but that he doesn’t intend to mobilize anti-amendment forces for a possible council debate.
These are the sort of people who will turn out again and again,” he says. They’re not political activists-hey’re ordinary families, who really are more likely to turn out in support of something than against it.
Maybe I’m making a mistake, a tactical errorÏbut if I can’t present my arguments with logic and love, they’re probably not worth making.”
part 2 of 2
THE GIRL AND THE DISHWASHER A 13-YEAR-OL… v5-20-92
