This week, a photograph emerged of Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr., drinking on a yacht with his zipper down and his arm around a young woman other than his wife, with exposed midriffs.
While Faithful America will not police private behavior like the religious right, Falwell would expel his students for this same picture as a violation of Liberty’s honor code. Just as Jesus called out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, we must hold today’s religious leaders accountable for their own hypocrisy.
After Falwell — Donald Trump’s first prominent evangelical supporter — spread coronavirus misinformation on Fox News and refused to adequately protect Liberty from the pandemic, a joint effort from Faithful America and Daily Kos recruited 90,000 signatures calling on school trustees to fire him as president.
Today, the campaign to fire Falwell for his hypocrisy has real momentum: Even conservative Congressman and former Liberty instructor Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) now says Falwell should resign.
You know it was weird, because she was, she’s pregnant, she couldn’t get her pants up, and I was, trying to like — my, I had on a pair of jeans I haven’t worn in a long time so I couldn’t get mine zipped either,’ the influential evangelical leader said.
‘And so I just put my belly — I just put my belly out like hers,’ he added, calling his wife’s assistant ‘a sweetheart.’
According to
Politico, the woman tagged in the original post was Kathleen Stone whose Facebook page lists Liberty University as her place of work.
‘I should never have put it up and embarrassed her because, um, anyway, I’ve apologized to everybody and I promised my kids, I’m gonna try to be a good boy from here on out,’ Falwell added.
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