Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert are cool with Jerry Falwell Jr.'s sexual choices, but not his hypocrisy

Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah on Jerry Falwell

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Daily Show, The Late Show)

published 26 August 2020

Jerry Falwell Jr., the first evangelical leader to endorse President Trump four years ago, is not speaking at this year's Republican National Convention, thanks largely to a public scandal involving his wife, Becki Falwell, and a hotel pool boy. "Now, I know what you're thinking, and get your mind out of the gutter — because I need room for my mind down there, because you're absolutely right," Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. "After years of innuendo, over the weekend Falwell revealed his wife had an affair with the pool boy," Giancarlo Granda.

Granda denies Falwell's claim that he's blackmailing them, but he did disclose that "Jerry enjoyed watching" him and Becki Falwell have sex, Colbert recounted. "Listen, I am not here to kink-shame. I believe whatever happens between consenting adults is perfectly fine, and I believe Jerry Falwell Jr. wants to watch them from the corner of the room. What I don't dig is hypocrisy."

"Facing all of this evidence, yesterday Falwell agreed to resign from Liberty University, then reversed course," Colbert said. "Come on, he's in, he's out, he's in, he's out — all the rest of us can do is sit back and watch." Look, he said, "this would all be a minor case of religious and sexual hypocrisy if it wasn't for one troubling detail: Last year, Michael Cohen claimed he helped bury personal photographs for Jerry Falwell Jr. before the evangelical leader backed Trump. Hmmm, sounds like blackmail. In fact, here's Donald Trump shaking the hand of the pool boy — and no surprise, Falwell is watching."

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"What consensual adults do in their sex life is up to them, and I don't judge anyone for anything," Trevor Noah agreed at The Daily Show. "But Falwell has made it his business to judge what everyone else has been doing with their sex lives." Honestly, he said, "sometimes I think guys like this are reading a different Bible to the rest of us. Because the Bible I read says to love thy neighbor and judge not lest you be judged first."

"If you're keeping score at home, we've got 1.2 million acres of wildfire, two hurricanes in one week, and a pandemic raging across America," Noah noted. "Like, I don't know if those are signs from God, but if I was Jerry Falwell Jr., I'd maybe stick to cold showers for a few weeks." Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.