Extend Charlie Kirk the empathy in death he denied so many in life

Decent people must refuse to gloat in the murder of anyone.

Living that philosophy can be challenging when the person killed is someone who spewed vile rhetoric against LGBTQ people, immigrants, people of color and women. Someone like Charlie Kirk.

Life is precious and political violence is never acceptable. If we smirk callously at death like Kirk did we become the thing we loathe. But that doesn’t mean his legacy should be scrubbed clean with his assassination. We can acknowledge that his murder was wrong without burying or excusing his abhorrent politics.

When Kirk, the well-known conservative activist died Wednesday, Sept. 10, after being struck by a bullet to the throat during a speech at Utah Valley University, the moment was a test for many of us whose communities were used as political props to forward his cynical, anti-human politics. It was an agenda that advocated for and profited from making other human beings suffer.

His hatred of the LGBTQ community was well known, specifically his opposition to marriage equality and other rights, which he justified as a tenet of his Christian beliefs. In 2024, Kirk cited the biblical passage from Leviticus that advocates for stoning queer people to death, calling it "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters." 

He also frequently employed the trope of LGBTQ “grooming” and said that there was a community agenda to “corrupt” children. On his podcast, he compared gay people to drug addicts in need of “correction.” 

His role in promoting discrimination of transgender people helped bring about the current slate of anti-transgender policies the community is facing, from bans on gender affirming care to so-called “bathroom bills” forbidding trans people from using the facility aligned with their gender identities. He regularly used dehumanizing language, referring to transgender people as “a middle finger to god,” and advocating that doctors who provide services to transgender people be prosecuted. 

At the time of his shooting, Kirk was answering questions about transgender people and mass shootings. 

As an influencer in his 20s and early 30s, he was able to reach a younger audience with his hate speech than many of the more senior leaders in the anti-LGBTQ movement.

Kirk’s views on race included calling non-white people in positions of power “DEI hires” (referring to diversity equity inclusion), criticizing the Civil Rights Act and calling the celebration of the Juneteenth holiday “anti-American.” 

Even with those things in mind, if we say what makes us different from Kirk and his ilk is our empathy – an emotion he spoke of as a weakness – we must extend it to even those who would not do the same for us.

I understand that when someone has a record of stoking hate and division, it is natural to feel conflicted in how we respond to their death, even if violent. There is relief that comes from knowing someone who would do you harm is no longer in this world. There is also a grand irony many social media posts are commenting on given Kirk’s unfeeling remarks on America’s epidemic of gun violence. 

In 2023, Kirk, the Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder, said that he thought deaths from gun violence were part of the price of preserving unfettered access to firearms. 

“I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” he said.

The sentiment that lives lost from gun violence is just part of some statistical equation is repellent – Kirk’s world view was and is disgusting. 

Now he’s among those statistics, but there should be no joy in this irony. We cannot allow ourselves to see his death as poetic justice. 

This past day, I have thought about people who have lived through political violence or died from it. I have thought about those left behind in the aftermath, some of whom are part of our community here in the Bay Area. I’ve thought about the pain of the families of Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, both who were slain by former San Francisco supervisor Dan White with a gun in 1978. 

“I’ve experienced political violence firsthand,” activist Cleve Jones, a close friend and protege of Milk wrote on social media. “It’s not a f—ing joke and there’s nothing to laugh about.”

More recently, Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota House Speaker Emerita, was shot and killed with her husband Mark Hortman and their golden retriever, Gilbert, in a political assassination. Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman was seriously wounded along with his wife, Yvette, that same night. Many on the political right, including President Donald Trump, have refused to acknowledge their deaths, but our own morality must be better than that. I do not wish that pain on anyone, and we do not honor victims of violence when we revel in what happened to Kirk.

And yes, there is an alleviation of anxiety some members of the communities that were targeted by Kirk might be feeling now that he is no longer able to advance his racist, misogynist, homophobic and transphobic worldview. I understand the inner turmoil many are feeling trying to live up to their better angels in spite of those feelings. It is only human. 

One of the ironies is that we can learn from Kirk’s death, but it’s too late for Kirk. The irony is as big as the tragedy.