The Free Speech Apocalypse begins with President Barack Obama taking the podium on an ice-cold January day in 2013, thundering his loyalty to the Constitution to a roaring, adoring crowd. Well, almost all adoring. I was therethat day watching Obama’s Second Inauguration, and I remember the sense of dread I felt as Obama laid out his roadmap for America’s second Reconstruction.
This documentary is a prescient and insightful one, if a bit fast-paced and hectic. It revolves around Pastor Douglas Wilson of Moscow, Idaho and his visit to the University of Indiana, where he was to give a lecture on biblical sexuality. All campuses, of course, have now become mandatory “safe spaces” for everyone who thinks the same way—and this campus is home to the infamous Kinsey Institute. Alfred Kinsey was one of the key architects of the Sexual Revolution, and, as we now know, a pervert and a sex criminal. To progressives, he is the ultimate hero: A sado-masochistic bisexual who lived precisely as he pleased, while trashing various fences to ensure that others could do the same. Kinsey didn’t realize that fences are not just erected to keep people in—they are also put up to keep the predators out.
To those who are not familiar with today’s campus atmosphere, the swarms of professionally offended protestors screaming obscenities at Wilson as he tried to speak might come across as shocking. For anyone who has engaged in any type of pro-life activism or perhaps even tried to organize a debate, however, this will be immediately familiar. The students unfurled a huge banner declaring that “the Queer Shall Inherit the Earth,” which one would assume was an admission of their intent to proselytize, considering that reproduction is somewhat out of the question. The campus coordinator was wearing a shirt that said “Jesus Loves Drag,” because of course, the one group you are allowed to offend with all your crude might is Christians. And when Wilson began speaking, the shrieking began.
And I use that word deliberately—there is something creepy about the voices rising and cracking in hysteria, the sheer fury that someone disagrees. That “hatred” has been redefined to apply to the man attempting to calmly lay out his worldview in front of the classroom rather than the profane, seething mob loudly calling him names is simply proof that once you start arbitrarily redefining things, it becomes very difficult to stop.
As Dr. Benjamin Merkle noticed, it is simply an assertion of raw power—by claiming victimhood. Many even showed up with fake bruises already painted on, to signify how the different worldview they were volunteering to hear was going to hurt them.
It is truth they are afraid of. After all, if they were not afraid, they would debate him and dispense with his points with arguments of their own. But there is a noticeable, pregnant pause when Wilson notes that post-modernism is “falling off the cliff to the craggy rocks of nihilism and despair below. But while falling, some may have the temporary sensation of absolute freedom.”
The students were exhausting in their petulance. There were rousing cheers for each mention of any unorthodox sexual activity. Their shouting was the equivalent of the pre-adolescent la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you! And one student actually yelled, “F**k you, I don’t want to hear this!” Well then, dear, what is it you’re doing in a closed lecture hall attending a voluntary lecture that you chose to show up at?
The rest of the documentary was more sobering, featuring interviews with bakers who had been driven out of business by harassment and fines of 135,000 dollars for the completely fictitious, just-invented crime of “mental rape.” Ironically, it seems the gay rights movement wants such business-people to go through a “reorientation,” a word I thought reduced them to a panicky tizzy. At almost dizzying speed, scenes of celebrities and various other public figures sobbing their penitence on-screen flashed by. Here I have one criticism—for those who don’t follow public events, many of these instances would have meant nothing. Context would have been helpful.
The Free Speech Apocalypse does not intend to be prophetic. It is a documentary, and it documents the rise of sexual minorities as a new protected class, and the relegation of Christians as an underclass increasingly being forced to genuflect at the Altar of Personal Feelings. For Christians who are interested in understanding this warp-speed erosion of rights, this documentary would be a fine place to start.
