Falwell Says There's Only One Mask He's Going to Wear

It has yearbook picture of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in blackface
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 28, 2020 4:10 AM CDT
Updated May 28, 2020 6:20 AM CDT
Falwell Designs Mask to Mock Virginia Governor
In this Nov. 28, 2018 photo, Jerry Falwell Jr. speaks before a convocation at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. .   (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

Jerry Falwell Jr. says that since Virginia's governor has ordered people to wear masks, the only one he's going to wear will have a picture of Gov. Ralph Northam on it—in blackface. The Liberty University president tweeted a photo of the mask Wednesday, which features the controversial photo from the Democratic governor's 1984 medical school yearbook, Newsweek reports. Falwell said he was "adamantly opposed" to the mask mandate until he decided to design his own. "If I am ordered to wear a mask, I will reluctantly comply, but only if this picture of Governor Blackface himself is on it!"

In an earlier tweet, Falwell accused Northam of bringing in the mask order because he was afraid COVID-19 numbers were improving, and "his ilk needs fear and crisis as an excuse to bolster their power and limit individual freedom." Under the order Northam issued this week, Virginia residents over 10 years old will be required to wear masks in indoor public spaces, starting Friday. "Everything we do affects someone else. I'm asking us all to remember the golden rule: that we should treat each other the way that we want people to treat us," Northam said Tuesday, per the Hill. (More Jerry Falwell Jr. stories.)

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