Police persecute a young man for ‘amplified’ preaching in public
A young man was arrested this week for preaching in the streets outside of a pride event in Watertown, Wisconsin.
“All the law is fulfilled in one word: you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” Marcus Schroeder is heard preaching on a viral video shared with millions of people across social media. “But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another.”
Preaching from the book of Galatians
Marcus Schroeder was sharing from the book of Galatians on the call to love others and was abruptly interrupted by multiple police officers. His microphone was ripped out of his hands by officers, and he was subsequently arrested. For preaching. About love. The justification for the unjust treatment and censorship? “Amplified sound.”
Jason Storms recorded the viral video that has reached millions of views on X, and can be heard calling the officers thugs, sadly, that’s exactly what they were doing. Ganging up on and attempting to intimidate a young man from preaching the Hope of the world – Jesus Christ. Schroeder and a team of Christians from Mercy Seat Christian Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, were together protesting the pride event, pointing people to the Truth, and they were subsequently persecuted for it.
They weren’t the only ones. Over 200 people protested, with three arrests of young people for, get this, “praying and talking to attendees.”
Storms shared with The Sentinel, “The police, per orders from city leaders, arrested several young people. Three were arrested earlier in the day while inside the park praying and talking to attendees, and then released with warnings,” said Storms, the minister of evangelism at Mercy Seat Christian Church. “It was open to the public, thus the public’s right to free speech carries with them. One was arrested later in the day for preaching on the public sidewalk outside the venue and is being charged with unlawful use of sound amplification and resisting arrest.”
An intimidation tactic
The intimidation by the Watertown officers and pride activists backfired.
After the experience, Schroeder was even more emboldened to stand for Christ, telling The Sentinel, “It was worth it. It’s actually an honor to be counted worthy to stand with the cloud of witnesses who have gone before us and been arrested for the sake of spreading Christ and his kingdom. If the police wanted to try and set an example for others or anything like that, the only thing I’ve seen is actually the exact opposite, where more and more people are seeing the severity of what’s going on and being called to more action.”
Storms pointed out to The Sentinel the hypocrisy and selective enforcement of the law at this very event. While the police were cracking down on preaching, section 948.055 of the Wisconsin CHAPTER 948 CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN code was being broken at that very moment.
948.055 states,”(1)Whoever intentionally causes a child who has not attained 18 years of age, or an individual who the actor believes or has reason to believe has not attained 18 years of age, to view or listen to sexually explicit conduct may be penalized as provided in sub….”
According to a report in The Sentinel, that’s exactly what was happening. The pride event was described as, “Performers dressed in lingerie were seen ‘dancing and gyrating in front of little children, who were invited to give them one dollar bills.'”
Several dozen police officers protected the drag queen event. Yet, a young man was arrested for sharing his faith. Ref. Isaiah 5:20.
