Smear Film: Jerry Falwell Jr. Caused the January 6th Riot and Ended Roe, and You’re Just Like Him

God Forbid, a tawdry, salacious, and politically-motivated smear documentary about Jerry Falwell Jr.’s fall from power was released on Hulu today, advancing the bizarre claim that Falwell was a “kingmaker” for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory and that Falwell’s sins demonstrate the evil of Christians who engage with the culture.

Director and raging leftist Billy Corben spends a good portion of the film talking not about the hypocrisy-fueled depravity itself, but how the iniquity of the Falwells and their man-whore pool boy Giancarlo Granda were the true cause of the supposed rise of Christian Nationalism and the capitol rioting on January 6th.

You read that right – The film claims that Becki and Jerry Falwell’s disgusting private life led to the “insurrection.”

Try to follow along: According to the narrative, because Becki and Jerry Falwell were apparent sexual predators, this means that all of the “culture” around them is also predatory and evil (Granda’s sister claims that Granda “put the spotlight on the grossness that was going on at the school, the abuse of power…”). This “culture” flows through Liberty’s conservative think tank the Falkirk (Falwell and Charlie Kirk) Center (now mercifully named the Freedom Center), and voices at the think tank questioned the 2020 election and were present in D.C. on January 6th for the (somehow gunless) “insurrection.” See, depraved sexual promiscuity = Trump supporters. Got it?

In a nod to Abuse Inc., the documentary claims that Granda was abused – apparently forgetting that the whole thing got started when he intentionally went up to a hotel room to have sex with a woman he knew was married. Cry us a river, Gian.

The documentary concludes not with a somber warning about adultery or sexual predation, but with a discussion of Republicans who were questioning the validity of the presidential election in November 2020. Using the typical monochromatic filters to make Trump supporters look like terrorists, the propaganda film denounces the overwhelmingly peaceful January 6th protesters as “parading around with Christian symbolism, invoking God and Jesus and the Bible in the service of sedition.”

So-called Christian “extremists” (or more accurately, actual Christians) are characterized as more dangerous than Islamic extremists, and January 6th is hatefully labeled as “Christian Jihad.” Evangelicals looking to affect government policy are claimed to be trying to change the US into a theocracy ruled by white Christian men (they even found a ranting Greg Locke clip for the film).

The film claims that evangelicals made a “deal with the devil” to get Trump into office so he could “shift the Supreme Court right” and end abortion “rights” – as if true Christians should somehow feel ashamed for succeeding in saving the lives of unborn babies. Finally, the film makes the Blue Anon crackpot claim that “Jerry Falwell Jr. has now officially completed the work his father began.” That is, of course, the sexual predator was the one responsible for ending abortion “rights.”

The preferred depiction of Falwell in relationship to January 6th was made clear in these two back to back images used in the film:

This research-absent, third-rate Michael Moore piece of garbage simply repeats largely known facts and claims about the Falwell-Granda tryst to work its audience into titillated incredulity before turning its guns on its actual target – pesky Christians intent on exercising their faith in public life. The real threat to Corben and his like-minded leftist buddies are not Jerry Falwell or Donald Trump – it’s Christians who dare to engage the culture.

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David Morrill

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