Charlie Kirk is Dead. Here’s Why I’m Celebrating!

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Most Mondays, Assigned Media runs the news aggregation column Leading Off. With the news dominated by the death of far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk, and amidst widespread fears of violence from the far right, we chose to feature this opinion column by our founder Evan Urquhart this week instead.

We’re not supposed to say it. It is terribly taboo. According to Reuters, at least 15 people have already been fired for saying it (reporting by NBC suggests it may be many more). And yet, and yet… there’s a stirring deep inside, a wild joy lifting our hearts, an impish gleam in our eyes as we say Charlie Kirk is dead.

How could anyone be sorry? How could anyone be mournful? A man who  kept a watchlist of professors whose views he disagreed with (one that spurred endless death and rape threats), is now dead! A man who supported the January 6 rioters that chanted calls to hang our vice president is dead! A man who called for his supporters to bail out the attempted murderer of one of his political rivals is dead! A vicious and committed racist is dead!

He claimed a passage in Leviticus said gay men should be stoned to death, calling this “God’s perfect law”*—and now he’s dead! In part, I am celebrating the fact that, however much evil remains in the world, at least nothing can ever bring him back. But mostly, I’m celebrating because he’s dead and I am still alive.

In normal times, I’d work to keep my schadenfreude at the death of a terrible person under wraps. The man has children, after all, and it would be a terrible thing if they were to learn how joyful their father’s death has made the people who he hurt. That’s why, in the first 24 hours after Kirk’s death, I kept decorum. I refrained from saying anything celebratory or even negative about this awful man. (Most people on the left did the same.)

These, however, are not normal times. These are times when the right to say something the far right finds offensive is under threat. It’s  under threat by the US government and by individuals in the far right who seek revenge. If they’re compiling a list of everyone who refuses to fellate the memory of the horrid, evil, violent, moon-faced turd then it’s a list I’d rather be on than off.

I am nothing if not a free speech absolutist. Freedom of expression is central to the ability of trans people to live our lives openly, freely, and with pride. And that’s why, however tasteless, however much I’d hesitate to say it in any normal circumstance, today I am determined to join the celebrants with my full chest.

All that said, let’s take a minute to be clear: There was no hotbed of violent transgender leftism that resulted in Kirk’s murder. Our community has always been peaceful, and only recently even begun considering the need for self-defense. Even if the young, white, male scion of a deep red state had a transgender partner (a claim that remains unverified by any reliable news organization), that is as irrelevant as the fact that his parents were Republicans. Attempts to blame the trans community on this pretext would be funny—if they weren’t putting us all in deadly peril.

For my part, I certainly never wanted Kirk to be shot—honestly I didn’t think about him much, except as one of a cadre of interchangeable dead-eyed far right toads. You know, the ones embracing Nazi analogies for the modern day US that casts them as the Nazis and trans people (and Jewish people, and immigrants, and Black Americans) as the Jews?

“This is our Reichstag fire!” they cried, as Kirk lay dead. Yes, you fucking freaks, we know.

I do not want and have never wanted any of them dead. I want them to chill out and be normal for the first time in their lives.

I know that some people who would usually be on my side may look askance at my strong words. But I have concluded that strong words are the only ones suited for this day. In the first months of Trump’s second term we’ve had far too many people tempering their tones, hoping to avoid the ire of the victorious far right. Each on our own we’ve been keeping our heads down, afraid to say the wrong thing, hoping things get better or, if they get worse (which we pretend not to expect), that we’ll be able to survive. As we cower we are losing the core freedoms that we learned in school made ours a country worthy of our love. We must be brave. We must not shrink.

That’s why I’ve chosen to depart from my normally measured tone. I have always believed in an American right to free speech which includes a right to be offensive. It’s not a right I’ve often exercised myself, but it is one I value highly, nonetheless. Today, this hallowed right is teetering on the brink. I think I’ll use it while I still have it, thank you very much.

Fuck Charlie Kirk, and fuck you, if you don’t like me saying fuck him. I’m not afraid to say I’m glad I’m still alive at 47 while he is dead at 31.

While I still can, I feel like celebrating.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that Leviticus calls for gay men to be stoned to death. While it calls for gay men to be executed, the Bible does not specify a method. Kirk was misquoting the Bible when he stated his beliefs about gay men.

Evan Urquhart is the founder of Assigned Media.

273 thoughts on “Charlie Kirk is Dead. Here’s Why I’m Celebrating!”

  1. Every person has the right to make there own choices at the age of 18. Stop grooming children ….. you guys built up an assassin, now 22 years old heading towards the death penalty …. He didn’t get the chance to explore his life, feelings ….. the radical left fed him the hateful rhetoric and groomed him to be there killer for there agenda truly sad! I believe truly Charlie Kirk would forgive his killer and would be sad for him because it is him that Charlie Kirk stood up for against all of the extreme left machine!!!

  2. There is not a single mention of ‘gay men’ in the Bible. For the simple fact that homosexuality as we know it now, didn’t exist in ancient times. Furthermore the verses that seem to condemn ‘homosexuality’ are about male temple prostitution and abuse of power (for examlple men sleeping with young boys, slave owners sleeping with their slaves, ritualistic abuse). You are doing exactly the same as Charlie Kirk, (mis)quoting verses out of their (historical and theological) context.

    • Imagine calling gay sex different, because of the year. And no it was widely observed, particularly in Greece and Rome with the latter being acceptable but only in the private confines of one’s bed chambers. If you bothered to study history, you’d know this.

  3. Hail hail, the Charlie’s dead, the wicked Charlie’s dead! He’s gone where the goblins go, below, below, below. Yoho, let’s open up and sing.

    I totally relate to your words. I didn’t feel any animosity towards Charlie when I’d learned he died. I’d never even heard of this campus agitator before. But the far right threatening people who criticize him has made me want to celebrate his death. Their goal to intimidate us is backfiring.

    Come and get me far right. I would love to exercise my right to stand my ground. I’ve never been afraid clowns and I don’t intend for that to change anytime soon.

  4. Oh, the right never mentions the murders of Democrats in Minnesota. Because that is ok with the radical right. They want every single Democrat in American locked up and shot. These MAGA racists are sick psychopaths like their leader Trump. They are fine with the fire bombing of Shapiro’s home. They don’t care.
    I employ 25 people. I am the boss. Come fire me Vance. Vance should read the MAGA comments regarding his wife. The "devout" MAGAs are saying Vance’s interracial marriage is not going to work for him to be president. That is from the MAGAs, NOT me. Remember a Charlie event where an attendee asked Charlie "When can we start killing the left?" My how short the MAGA memory. But that is totally expected. I am absolutely in for splitting up the US. The red states are the biggest recipients of Federal money that will end. Let them sink into oblivion.

  5. I share your sentiments.
    In Afghanistan as a Soldier, we got ambushed by the Talibs; they were brave and not afraid to fight. As rounds whistled past, I instinctively returned fire and was glad to see him fall. It felt like scoring a touchdown but it was more.

    I had just ended the life of one of the men who was absolutely trying to end mine. There was no pre-meditation, no rage, it was survival. He was not the only one I had to kill but I do not hate them, in fact I pity them now in retrospect of course.

    I did not shoot Charlie Kirk but the right wing Christo-fascists have set up a website named "Charlies Murderers" to dox all of us who so much as criticize Kirk. The right wing have become drunk on power and the months of cruelty delivered to the immigrant community on their behalf has only whetted their appetite to see more cruelty and blood.

    Charlie Kirk was spewing rhetoric but it was stochastic terror; it was designed to enrage someone into acting on their anger. Some of the maga cult are flying "no quarter" flags, left over from their last petulant rage, threatening now to go door to door, begging Trump for permission, to say ‘GO". Anyone who argues "he was just using his free speech" is lying, soft pedaling white Christian nationalism.

    White Christian Nationalism is simply white racist nationalism hiding behind the Bible and a cross and Charlie was pointing that loaded weapon directly at anyone not in his circle of smiling fascists.

    So Fuck Charlie Kirk and fuck his followers and fuck anyone who thinks he was "just sharing ideas".

  8. This is a very sad, ironically hateful post. On the one side Charlie is taken from his family that he dearly loves.

    On the other side, Tyler is now separated from his family, seperated from his trans partner, sitting in jail facing capital murder charges.
    He’s only 22 years old, man that is such a young life full of possibilities. And now that young life is dimmed with a very grim future of consequences.

    The people around Tyler, his "community" that pushed him to throw his life away for political gain are truly mistaken. There is no good from this, only evil.

    52 year old Tyler desperately wants to speak to his 22 year old self on Sept 9th. Don’t commit this act of violent intolerence, of murder.
    You have a lifetime to give Love, Laughter and Comfort.

    To use Tyler’s life in this manner is evil.

    • I think you’re misunderstanding how time works. I wrote this after Kirk was already dead, which means it can’t have inspired anyone to commit murder. I’ve always been one hundred percent committed to nonviolent methods of change and protest, and I’ve said so repeatedly.

      • I think you misunderstand how influence works. While you may not have had any part in the murder of Charlie Kirk, from here on out, you could have a hand in anyone else’s murder for free speech. You have made it laudable for people to kill over disagreement. So congratulations, you know how time works, too bad you dont seem to grasp basic decency.

        And for the record, I disagree with most of Charlie Kirk’s stances, but he did not deserve to be murdered.

        And I’m coming from Brad Polumbo’s video with you and I have to say, your ego is unmatched. To claim to be a proponent of free speech while simultaneously celebrating tge murder of someone for exercising his right to free speech has to be the height of hypocrisy. Or are you unwilling to admit that you only support right to free speech when the speakers agree with you?

  10. I got nothing more too say then your soooo bogus for talking shit about that man might have said stuff people didn’t like. But it was all true and to the best of a smart man’s knowledge true and right in every way huge huge believer in god almighty and I stand for Charlie Kirk in every way

  11. And this is why Charlie Kirk was absolutely right to criticize and expose people like you while he was alive. You are morally bankrupt pieces of shit. Not even taking into account the arguments about your identity, the more important point is that you are just fundamentally bad people, and you prove it when you post shit like this.

    By all means, please keep showing the world how much you people fucking suck.

    • What an awful thing to say. Imagine thinking that somebody not liking or being grateful that somebody who actively sought to persecute everybody like them (race, gender, sexuality- this guy supported all being persecuted) is no longer able to do so.

      If somebody raped you, would it be socially wrong to be grateful when they die and can never do it again? What about an abusive parent?

      I’m not even trans, but this guy was garbage. I’m white. I’m cisgender. I’m a chick married to a man. I laughed finding out that this twat got killed with a bullet engraved with words referencing an old furry shit post. These trans people here saying they’re relieved are far better than I am because I’m deeply satisfied with how he went out.

      Imagine saying trans people as a whole are "fundamentally bad" when cis white people are out here laughing ten times as hard. The guy was garbage and spewed vitriol at everybody and anybody he could- treat people how you want to be treated & all that. So now we are. Woohoo his death is so worth the right to arms. Aren’t we all grateful for his absolutely necessary sacrifice so people can have guns? What a hero /s

      Seriously though- you’re only mad because hatred is finally heading in the direction of a man who had enough hatred to outdo a whole college crowd. His heterosexual, cisgender white religious self was a far worse man than anybody expressing their 1st amendment rights here. He celebrated the death of other men violently killed. He told people to bail out the attempted murderer of a political rival. The man wasn’t right about anything. He was the problem.

      • The problem is Charlie never did 90% of the things you insane terrorists think he did. He never sought to persecute ANYONE. You bought the lie, hook line and sinker. You, you’re way of thinking, is the problem. Not seeking out the truth, just blindly parroting things others say.

      • He didn’t actively seek to persecute anyone. There is not one example of that.

        "If somebody raped you, would it be socially wrong to be grateful when they die and can never do it again? What about an abusive parent? " – Yes. Celebrating ANYONE’s death is morally evil.

        "I’m not even trans, but this guy was garbage. I’m white. I’m cisgender. I’m a chick married to a man. I laughed finding out that this twat got killed with a bullet engraved with words referencing an old furry shit post. These trans people here saying they’re relieved are far better than I am because I’m deeply satisfied with how he went out." Being happy about this makes you morally evil. You need mental health help.

        "Imagine saying trans people as a whole are "fundamentally bad" when cis white people are out here laughing ten times as hard. The guy was garbage and spewed vitriol at everybody and anybody he could- treat people how you want to be treated & all that. So now we are. Woohoo his death is so worth the right to arms. Aren’t we all grateful for his absolutely necessary sacrifice so people can have guns? What a hero /s" – First he never actually said they were fundamentally bad. He said they are mentally ill. Not the same things. And Charlie was polite and respectful to people. Where the fuck do you get this garbage?

        Charlie had no hate in his heart for anyone. And what does his skin color have to do with anything? By bringing that up tells me you are racist. His sexuality has nothing to do with anything either.

  13. You are a disgusting vile human being. Celebrating someone that was killed over a belief. That makes you evil. You are a liar and don’t support free speech. You support killing people for speaking their speech. I hope you get what you deserve you piece of human garbage. You trans people need to be put away into mental institutions. You don’t belong with the general society.

  15. I hope you find peace and are able to move on from the hate that has obviously become your motivation. This shows your true character and I genuinely hope no one says this about you when you die.

  17. To claim that the trans community has always been peaceful is just simply an outright blatant lie. As a gay man who doesn’t believe in the regressive concept of gender I’ve face more homophobic attacks, including physical attacks at pride events in the last 5 years from the TRAs and gender ideologues than ever before in my 43 years in this planet.

  18. Yikes, this community is radical and is quickly destroying the broad support they had cultivated over the past few decades.

  19. You are a sick, sorry excuse for a human being. And you are not fit to have licked Charlie Kirk’s shoes. Maybe someday you’ll have the grace to feel shame.

  20. Thank you for helping to destroy the gay/trans community just to get attention … hypocrite. One less evil person in the world is you.

    • Good math! Your Nazi dickhead dies, and you subtracted a totally different alive person from your – uh – world in your brain? Keep plugging away! You’ll own those libs any day now

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