Charlie Kirk’s assassination on September 10, 2025, shook the conscience of the world. A young man, killed in broad daylight, was a campus speaker armed only with words, not a president with guards or a senator with influence.
President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. President James Garfield was struck down at a train station in the same city. President William McKinley was assassinated at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas. Civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Archbishop Óscar Romero was murdered while celebrating Mass in San Salvador, El Salvador. Each of these figures wielded visible political, social, or ecclesial power that threatened entrenched systems. As Anthony Esolen has observed, Kirk’s case was different. He was not a head of state, a senator, or a bishop. And unlike MLK Jr., he was not directing a movement with institutional networks behind him. Kirk had a large influence, especially among young voters, mainly through his campus appearances and his Turning Point USA podcast and outreach. Kirk’s most dangerous weapon was speech and his insistence that truth is not negotiable, that men are men, women are women, and Christ is Lord, that marked him for death on a campus once devoted to inquiry.
Whatever one thinks of his politics or theology, violence of this kind poisons civic life and mocks the Gospel of love, mercy, and forgiveness.
And what came next? Almost before the echoes of the gunshot faded, the smears began: Kirk the fascist. Kirk the racist. Kirk the hater. Erin Reed declared in “We Must Not Posthumously Sanitize Charlie Kirk’s Hateful Life” that his legacy was nothing but hate. Nijay Gupta, in “If You Are Elevating Charlie Kirk, Consider Who You Are Crushing Underfoot,” warned that honouring him meant trampling minorities. Wilderness Dispatch offered a softer tone but a similar error in “We Are Remembering Two Different Charlie Kirks,” claiming that depending on your feed, he was either a martyr or a villain. None of these three portraits are fair.
Debate his politics if you like, but misrepresentation is not proper engagement.
The “Fascist” Smear
The term “fascism” has been stretched and twisted for decades, often thrown out as a weapon against opponents. Historically, the term is most closely associated with the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. At its heart, fascism meant a marriage of state and corporate power under a strongman, with dissent crushed and nationalism turned militant. Kirk’s outlook was the opposite. He spoke for free markets, smaller government, open debate, and personal responsibility. He could be sharp in his tone, but he never called for the state to swallow society whole. Calling him a fascist stretches the word until it breaks and loses all meaning. That is not sound argumentation but rather misrepresentation.
The father of fascism, Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile, once stated, “Fascism is a form of socialism; in fact, it is its most viable form.” Kirk, by contrast, stood as far from socialism as one could imagine. His critics, however, are often deeply rooted in it. What many fail to recognize is the ideological foundation of fascism within leftist thought, particularly its internal tension between nationalist and internationalist (or globalist) agendas. Dinesh D’Souza has compellingly argued that, both historically and in its modern expressions, fascism shares far more in common with the Democratic Party than with traditional conservatism.
Was He Really “Hateful”?
Reed paints his whole life as hatred. Gupta implies that praising him dishonours minorities.
Kirk opposed same-sex marriage, yet in 2019 he made clear that gay people were welcome within the conservative movement. His opposition was grounded in his faith not bigotry. He leaned on Christian teaching and on the words of Jesus about marriage (Mark 10; Matthew 19), where the union of man and woman is affirmed as God’s design from the beginning (Genesis 1:27 and 2:24). He also warned against gender transitions for minors, grounding his case in both Scripture and science, but he never urged violence. What troubled him most was the lostness of young men. Again and again he urged them toward faith, family, and the hope he had found in Christ.
You can dislike his theology or his policies. Many did. But to turn disagreement into a sweeping charge of hate is a motive fallacy. It assigns intent without proof. Moreover, it does nothing to address whether his claims are coherent and true.
The Wilderness Dispatch piece tries for nuance. It admits Kirk could be respectful, like in his exchange with a trans teen or his appearances on Jubilee. But then it claims his harshest lines weigh just as heavily, leaving two incompatible personas. This is still uncharitable and unbalanced, since it avoids the more rigorous work of judging his record in full.
The Leviticus Controversy
One of the most poisonous accusations against Kirk was that he wanted gay people executed. This charge arose from a June 2024 episode of The Charlie Kirk Show. In response to YouTuber Ms. Rachel, who had cited Leviticus 19:18’s command to “love your neighbour as yourself,” Kirk pointed out that the surrounding passages in the Torah also include prohibitions and penalties for homosexual acts (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13). He described this as “God’s perfect law” in the context of sexual morality.
Critics immediately seized on the comment. Erin Reed, and at first even the novelist Stephen King, claimed that Kirk was calling for stoning in modern America. But this was a misrepresentation. Quoting the Mosaic law to make a theological point is not the same as asking governments to enforce it in our own time. For centuries, Christians have argued about how the Old Testament should be read through the lens of the new covenant, often sorting its commands into what was ceremonial, what was civil, and what still carries moral weight. Preachers and commentators still turn to these texts to stress God’s holiness, while also pointing out that Christ brought the law to completion. In the end, even Stephen King acknowledged that he had gone too far and admitted he had misrepresented Kirk’s intent. Erin Reed, however, has as of yet not retracted her statement.
Even Dave Rubin, a gay man in a civil union, went on Piers Morgan to say Kirk was not homophobic. That should have ended the slander.
Debates and Campus Tables
Kirk’s “Change My Mind” tables drew crowds and critics. Some said they were set up to humiliate students. But think about it: every public debate is staged in some sense. Presidential showdowns. Late-night interviews. Even Plato’s dialogues. Nobody was dragged to Kirk’s table. Students lined up willingly.
Yes, he was usually better prepared, and that reflected his work ethic. In most debates he knew far more than the students across the table from him, and often more than the professors who tried to trip him up. At the same time, Kirk lacked the specialised training to match true experts in fields like philosophy or science, and this sometimes left gaps in his arguments. Yet this reveals something larger: how poorly universities are equipping their own students. I have seen firsthand, and have written before, how postsecondary education often hollows out critical thinking and replaces it with rote ideology and empty slogans. When a simple question such as “What is a woman?” leaves undergraduates either speechless or uttering incoherent absurdities, the problem is not a trick. It is indoctrination and ideological possession.
The Dispatch essay admitted he could debate with respect, even in hostile settings. Yet it still claimed the “real” Kirk depended on your algorithm. That reduces truth to one’s subjective experience, rather than objective reality. There was not two Kirks. There was one man whose words deserve to be judged charitably, honestly, and contextually.
Watchlists and Free Speech
Professor of English Jeff Sharlet at Dartmouth College accused Kirk of opposing free speech by creating the Professor Watchlist and the School Board Watchlist. The accusation is unfounded. These projects catalogued professors and officials promoting ideology in classrooms. Some may consider this to be heavy-handed, but cataloguing public speech is itself speech. Advocacy groups and journalists do this constantly: the ACLU, Media Matters, and watchdog outfits of every stripe. To call exposure “censorship” is a category error. Students and parents deserve to know what kind of instruction they are receiving, especially if professors depart from the curriculum into ideological activism. It is no different from buying a product advertised as one thing and then discovering it delivers something else. Transparency protects the consumer in the marketplace, and it should protect students in the classroom.
The “Public Executions” Remark
Kirk’s talk about televising executions, even saying children should see them as a “holy experience,” was unsettling. He quite possibly deserved criticism for the way he put it. Yet context matters. He was speaking of capital punishment as a legal deterrent, not mob violence. Treating the two as if they were the same is a mistake.
Christians have long wrestled with the morality of the death penalty. Some argue it can serve justice and protect the common good, while others point to mercy, the dignity of life, and the danger of condemning the innocent. The Catholic debate has never been simple, and recent discussions show how deeply the issue divides thoughtful believers.
Placed in that wider context, Kirk’s words sit on the side of those who see justice as requiring strong enforcement. He was not calling for lawless violence. He was arguing, however awkwardly, about deterrence within an established legal system.
Race, Immigration, and Merit
Gupta points to Kirk’s cracks about Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, claiming he demeaned Black women’s intelligence. In these particular cases, one could argue that the praise heaped on them by Democrats far outstripped their actual record of ideas and accomplishments. But this does not mean Kirk dismissed the intelligence of Black leaders as a whole. He often praised Candace Owens for her sharpness and courage, and he frequently highlighted Dr. Ben Carson as someone he looks up to.
Gupta cites Kirk’s critiques of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his opposition to Indian work visas. Here precision matters. If Kirk had claimed races differ in intelligence by nature, that would be racism and worth condemning. But he did not. He opposed quotas and regulatory expansion, not desegregation.
The IQ debate raised by Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson shows the key distinction. Studying possible group differences as an empirical question is one thing. Declaring racial hierarchies is racism. Kirk stayed on the former ground.
On immigration, he warned that visa programs displace American workers and depress wages. Economists across the spectrum have noted the same about H-1B visas. Studies show downward wage pressure and firms using visa holders for cheaper labour. One can debate his sharp rhetoric. But the policy dispute was real. To twist that into “Indians are lesser” is a leap.
Kirk on Race
Kirk often argued that “Black people and white people are the same. Race is a social construct I want to break out of.” He wanted a society where people are judged by character and actions, not skin colour. Heated debates aside, that aspiration aligns with a colour-blind standard of justice we should all uphold.
On Martin Luther King Jr.
Kirk once called MLK Jr. “awful” and “not a good person.” These may be harsh words, but they are far from being an example of racism.
King’s personal flaws are well-documented: serial philanderer, plagiarism in his dissertation, and his unfounded theological doubts about the resurrection. Black theologians and historians have said the same. Criticizing King’s character or theology is not rejecting civil rights. It is acknowledging reality. The outrage here is selective: some figures are fair game for critique, while others are untouchable.
Empathy, Guns, and Other Charges
Reed accused Kirk of rejecting empathy itself. Not so. He warned against what he called “weaponized empathy,” using emotion to defend destructive policy. That is different from rejecting compassion.
Reed also pointed to his remark that “a few gun deaths are worth the Second Amendment” as evidence of bloodlust. The context was a grim calculus: liberty comes with risks. You may find the reasoning cold, even chilling, but it was not a wish for carnage.
Theology and the “Many-Coloured Kingdom”
Gupta argued that praising Kirk undermines St. Paul’s vision of a kingdom where Jew and Greek, slave and free, are one. His reasoning rests on perception: if some feel hurt, Christians must not honour Kirk.
But perception is not truth. In fact, St. Paul himself said to “test everything and hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).That should be the measure. We can recognize Kirk’s courage and his pro-life witness while rejecting words that may be perceived as careless or insensitive. To do less is to abandon truth and charitableness.
A Pattern of Fallacies
The same errors show up again and again. Quoting Leviticus can be interpreted as endorsing stoning, which is a non sequitur. Cataloguing professors becomes censorship, a category error. Discussing the death penalty can be interpreted as inciting mob violence, which is a strawman. Disagreement itself becomes proof of hate, which is nothing more than a motive fallacy. King’s retraction gets ignored, suppressed evidence. Critiques of quotas are twisted into biological claims, pulled out of context to make him say what he never meant. Honouring Kirk’s virtues is painted as whitewashing his flaws, a false dilemma.
Even the Dispatch article, more balanced on the surface, falls into relativism. By claiming there were “two Kirks,” it turns one’s subjective experience into objective reality. In truth, there was one Charlie Kirk, who was misrepresented in fragments.
Concluding Reflection
We should all be mindful of St. Paul’s words: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This is a truth that applies too all humans, including Charlie Kirk and ourselves. These accusations, upon closer scrutiny, often prove to be exaggerated or even false. Yet even when they are true, they still do not capture the whole of a person’s life. If Kirk’s sharpest words are allowed to define his entire existence, then fairness demands the same standard for everyone. Should Mohandas Gandhi be reduced only to his alleged racism? Should John F. Kennedy be remembered only for his extramarital affairs? Should Martin Luther King Jr. be defined only by his adultery? Should Ravi Zacharias be remembered only for his scandals? Should Francisco Ayala be remembered only for the harassment allegations that ended his career and not for his genuine scientific contributions? The temptation to reduce people to their worst moments is the spirit of cancel culture, a habit that has spread across our society, whether on the left or the right. Human beings are more than their worst failings. Undoubtedly, we are complex creatures, marked by both greatness and weakness. To deny Kirk the same complexity is special pleading.
Charlie Kirk was not perfect. He sometimes spoke hastily, used rhetoric that was too sharp, and backed policies that remain debatable. Yet he also inspired young people, defended the unborn, proclaimed Christ, and resisted a culture drifting further into relativism. He spoke frequently about the financial future of the next generation, warning that a broken economic system would burden them regardless of which party was in power. He sought to protect women’s spaces from being erased by ideology and insisted on the truth about sex and the created order. These were not the words of a man consumed by hate but of one convinced that truth and moral responsibility still matter.
To call him a fascist is false. To declare his life nothing but hate is careless. To recycle the stoning slander is dishonest. To turn debates about immigration into charges of racism is unfair. To dismiss his campus encounters as “trolling” is unserious. What is most troubling is that some academics and even Christian thinkers have repeated these caricatures, giving them credibility they do not deserve. That is not sober reasoning. It is ideological possession.
If truth matters, falsehood and misrepresentation must be resisted. One can acknowledge the deceased’s faults while still upholding their virtues. What lies behind many of these criticisms is not a concern for whether his claims were true, but for how they made one side of the ideological divide feel.
G. K. Chesterton once remarked that original sin is the one Christian doctrine you can “see in the street.” That was true of Charlie Kirk, as it is true of his critics, and it is just as true of me.
