Display of Dr. Fauci popping up for holidays

Ho! Ho! Ho! A smiling Dr. Anthony Fauci dresses as Santa Claus this holiday season, ready to flash a big thumbs-up and charm puzzled passersby.

It’s “Fauci Klaus,” a life-size cutout of the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, ready to grace the halls of Florida’s Capitol building and public venues in South and Central Florida. The display is an activist’s way of getting people to laugh while raising awareness of the seriousness of COVID-19 and vaccines.

Chaz Stevens, an activist from Deerfield Beach, obtained approval to put his display in the state Capitol from Nov. 29 through Dec. 6, records show. And this week, he asked Deerfield Beach and Delray Beach for permission to set up similar displays in December. He’s organizing the campaign through his church.

Stevens is invoking his own religious liberty by establishing a church of his own to make this happen — the Mount Jab Church, Holy Church of the Vaccinated.

“So it’s our religious exemption to the religious exemption of people who think they can walk around and not get vaccinated and not wear a mask and try to blow their radioactive snot and stupidity on us,” Stevens, 57, said.

He made national news eight years ago when he won permission to put up a beer-can themed Festivus pole at the state Capitol. The pole, a running joke on the 1990s sitcom “Seinfeld,” celebrates the secular holiday Festivus, “a Festivus for the rest of us.”

In 2015, Stevens put up rainbow-colored Festivus poles across America in honor of Gay Pride.

Public records show he was granted approval for his display in Tallahassee. Representatives for Deerfield Beach and Delray Beach confirmed he made a similar request for local displays. He says he has similar requests in Orlando, Tampa and other major cities around the country.

COURTESY An edited graphic shows what a holiday display will look like when it’s erected in the Florida Capitol Rotunda starting in late November. South Florida activist Chaz Stevens was recently granted approval to put a ‘Fauci Klaus’ in the state Capitol. Now he wants to bring a similar display to Deerfield Beach and Delray Beach.