‘ll be honest — I wasn’t sure what to expect when Grant Moss agreed to talk to me. The host of Irreverent — the podcast that has made three sitting congressmen sweat through their suits — is exactly as advertised. Sharp. Funny. Slightly dangerous. And absolutely not sorry about any of it. We met virtually, and he showed up exactly on time, coffee in hand, looking like trouble in the best possible way.
So Grant. Conservative conventions. You’ve been to a few.
More than I’d like to admit. My therapist calls it a compulsion. I call it content.
What’s the elevator pitch for people who’ve never been?
Imagine your most insufferable uncle’s fever dream brought to life in a convention center. American flags everywhere. Men in suits that cost more than my rent talking about the working class. Women smiling so hard their faces must ache by Tuesday.
Sounds exhausting.
Oh it’s exhausting AND illuminating. That’s the thing people don’t understand. These events are fascinating precisely because of the gap between the performance and the reality.
The gap.
(he smiles over his coffee cup)
Let’s just say the agenda and the after-hours activities don’t always align.
Meaning?
Meaning the same men thundering about moral decay at two in the afternoon are absolutely unhinged at the hotel bar by ten at night. I’ve seen things. I have receipts I’ll never use because I actually have a conscience, which frankly puts me ahead of most of the speakers.
Give me something. Anything.
(laughing)
Okay. Without naming names. I once watched a very prominent advocate for traditional marriage spend forty minutes at a hotel bar buying drinks for someone who was emphatically not his wife. And when I say emphatically I mean demographically, structurally, and in every conceivable way.
Oh my God.
And that’s a Tuesday. That’s not even the interesting stuff.
What’s the interesting stuff?
(pause)
That’s what I’m going back to find out.
Wait — you’re going back? To another one?
The Turning Tides USA conference. Next month.
Are you covering it for the podcast?
I’m going undercover. No press credentials. Just me, a hotel room, and a very open mind.
Undercover as what exactly?
(that smile again)
An attendee. A true believer. Someone who belongs there.
You. A true believer.
I can be very convincing when I’m motivated.
And what’s motivating you this time?
There’s a keynote speaker. Very prominent. Very polished. Very… vocal about certain issues that affect people I care about. And I have a feeling — call it journalistic instinct — that there’s a story there.
What kind of story?
The best kind. The kind where everything is not what it seems.
Should this keynote speaker be worried?
(long pause, something shifting behind his eyes that wasn’t there before)
Honestly? I have no idea anymore.
That sounds like there’s more to this than a podcast episode.
I think I’ve said enough.
Grant —
Order your copy. You’ll find out what happened.
Grant Moss’s story — and what really happened at the Turning Tides USA conference — is told in Original Sins: A Divine Gay Romance (Divine Temptations Book Five) by Ian O. Lewis and Luke Jameson.
Preorder your copy now. Some temptations were always meant to be surrendered to.
Ian O. Lewis and Luke Jameson 