Could It Be Love?

Washington Post/May 24, 2001

While disaffected congregants stood outside Archbishop George A. Stallings Jr.'s Imani Temple Wednesday night holding signs protesting the sudden influence of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, The Post's Hamil R. Harris was on the inside talking with Stallings's 24-year-old handpicked Japanese bride-to-be.

Okinawa native Soyami Kamimoto is a woman of few words and a spotty command of English, Harris reports. As her future husband listened, Harris asked how she felt about the mass wedding ceremony in New York this Sunday when she and her 53-year-old fiance tie the knot.

"I am getting married, yes of course it is my marriage," she replied. What does her intended mean to her? "He means everything. He is God. God sent him to me, I believe." And how will she handle being first lady of Stallings's church on Capitol Hill?

"I would like to be part of congregation rather than first lady," she said. She was more expressive when it came to public displays of affection.

In the church coat room where the interview took place, she hugged Stallings. She kissed him. She made him blush. She took him by the hands and gazed into his eyes.

Stallings, meanwhile, told Harris: "Jesus was an Asiatic Jew with black blood flowing through his veins. Look at me, a man of African descent about to marry a woman of Asian descent. We are about to have some new Jesuses."