‘Love outweighs the hate.’ Gay candidate targeted by South MS preacher in live sermon
Jacob Cochran, 28, is running for a seat on the Board of Aldermen in Poplarville, the Pearl River County town of 3,000 people where he has lived for almost all of his life.
Cochran is openly gay, but for most of the race, that hasn’t come up. Instead, he has told voters about his plan to establish a Main Street program to revitalize downtown and how his background in marketing could help Poplarville appeal to visitors.
So on Saturday, when a friend showed Cochran a video clip of a local pastor claiming during a sermon that Cochran’s sexuality made him unfit to serve as an alderman, he was shocked.
“I might get in trouble for this,” said Jonathan Hatfield, preaching at College Heights Baptist Church on Sept. 20. “We have a homosexual on the ballot in this city... done made it through the run-off. I know the guy personally. Good guy. But that don’t change the sin that he has in his life.”
Then he warned his congregants about the consequences of voting for Cochran.
“If they put him in office, what is he gonna enforce?” Hatfield said. “Which direction is he going to go? It’s not going to be with a Christian mindset.”
For Cochran, Hatfield’s words were both shocking and not altogether surprising. It was confirmation that the attitude that led Cochran to experience name-calling while he was growing up would shape how some of his potential constituents would view his candidacy — a sign that some things haven’t changed.
But the response from many in the community, including some members of Hatfield’s congregation who told Cochran that their preacher’s words were wrong, also showed that in this deeply conservative town, there is a great deal that has changed.
“I watched it and I was just kind of in disbelief,” Cochran said. “This is things that happened 50 years ago. That shouldn’t be happening right now.”
The people who commented on Cochran’s Facebook post about the incident agreed.
“The love outweighs the hate,” he said.
Hatfield and the College Heights Baptist Church did not respond to a phone call and email requesting comment.
Federal law prevents churches and other non-profit organizations from making statements for or against candidates in political races. If they violate the law, they can lose tax-exempt status.
Mayor Rossie Creel knows Hatfield and his family (“Everybody knows everybody and half of us are related”) and said he couldn’t imagine why the pastor would say a gay person wasn’t fit to serve as alderman.
“I’m of course disappointed that someone from our community would say what was said,” Creel said. “It’s not something that we as a city believe in. We want people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, sexual preference— we’re a diverse community.”
Recent LGBTQ issues
LGBTQ issues have made the news in Pearl River County a few times in recent years. In 2013, a lesbian couple applied for a marriage license as part of an initiative to highlight the South’s laws against gay marriage. They were denied, as Mississippi law required. The Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage with its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.
In 2017, Lambda Legal filed suit against a funeral home on behalf of a man who said the facility had refused to provide services for his deceased husband, and partner of more than 50 years, because the couple was gay. The funeral home director vehemently denied the claims.
When Cochran decided to move back to Poplarville after a stint in Hattiesburg for college, his main concern was not whether he would be accepted as a gay man, but whether he would be able to find a place to eat after 9 p.m.
Over the last 10 years, Cochran has opened a photography business, worked as a marketing specialist at Pearl River Community College, helped provide free senior portraits for underprivileged high schoolers, and served on the board of the Sweet Mississippi Tea Festival.
He decided to run for alderman-at-large earlier this year. Poplarville has great potential, he said, but with empty buildings downtown, it needs attention.
His best friend, Katrina Mizell, said their town is a “wonderful community” and she has seen people become more accepting of LGBTQ people over the last decade. But she had heard homophobic comments for practically her entire 42 years.
“I did worry, though, when he decided to run, because people like to, they like to look at a person and pick them apart and choose what they can hurt them with,” she said. “And I was afraid that people would use that against him.”
Five candidates participated in the first-round election on Aug. 25.
Mizell said she was pleasantly surprised by the support Cochran got. He’s young, a first-time candidate, and openly gay in a small Southern town. He still managed to make the runoff, set for Oct. 13.
Candidate responds: ‘It’s heartbreaking’
When Hatfield gave his sermon on Sept. 20, Cochran had no idea, even though it was streamed on Facebook Live. One of his friends, a member of the church, finally told him about it over the weekend. She hadn’t known Cochran was gay, so she didn’t initially realize who Hatfield was referring to. Now she told Cochran she is considering finding a new church.
For Cochran, watching the video hurt. As Hatfield indicated when he called Cochran a “good guy,” the two have met in person.
“I’ve helped things grow,” he said. “I’ve done all this stuff, and for people to say I can’t do a job as alderman because I’m gay is just insulting, and a very uneducated thing to say.”
Cochran posted the video on Facebook with a message.
“I am simply trying to make my town a better place (as I’ve been doing so for the past 10 years) and things like this happen,” he said. “I’m not gonna lie, it’s crushing. It’s heartbreaking. However, if you think I’m going to change who I am to win an election you are mistaken.”
The supportive comments rolled in. A deacon at College Heights called Cochran to say Hatfield didn’t represent the congregation’s views towards LGBTQ people. Daniel Brown, his opponent in the upcoming runoff, called to check in.
Cochran said he decided to speak publicly about the incident because he worried about what local young people might learn about their community if it was swept under the rug.
“I would be doing a disservice to LGBTQ youth by not bringing attention to Jonathan Hatfield, and not shedding light that these things still very much do happen here,” he said. “And not just in Poplarville. It’s all across the South.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 5:50 AM.
