The shooting death of Charlie Kirk, leader of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, was a shock to his millions of followers and to the entire country.
Regardless of the shooter’s grievances, the murder of Kirk was an attack on a fundamental American value that should be dear to us all: his right to speak.
But a tribute planned in the Florida Legislature is both excessive and offensive.
House Bill 113 would require a street to be renamed for Kirk at all 40 Florida state universities and colleges. Every 50 miles or so, a state road would bear his name, making it as ubiquitous as U.S. 1 or I-95. In a case of overt political coercion, schools that refuse would lose their state money.
This is less of a tribute and more an act of provocation.
The roads most traveled
The bill sponsor, Republican Rep. Kevin Steele, even specifies which roads to rename, choosing those most traveled by students and the public.
In Tallahassee, Florida State University’s Chieftain Way near iconic Doak Campbell Stadium would become Charlie James Kirk Road.
The state capital has two state universities and a state college, so three Charlie Kirk roads would exist in a racially diverse city that has so honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just once. It makes no sense, and it is extremely callous in a city deeply scarred by an April mass shooting that killed two people and wounded seven.
Kirk was an outspoken critic of gun control, and many of his other views were highly offensive.
Tinged with racism
He called the 1964 Civil Rights Act “a huge mistake” and said Dr. King was “awful.” He scorned the Supreme Court appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was a sitting federal judge, as a “diversity hire.”
Kirk claimed that “80% of Black people do not have a stable father around.” That is true of less than half of Black children and does not account for fathers who remain involved with them after divorce.
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified,'” Kirk said on a 2024 podcast — a flagrantly racist view.
He didn’t care for Muslims either. “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” he said.
Preaching antisemitism
Although he volubly praised Israel and decried antisemitism, he echoed nakedly antisemitic ideas in saying “Jewish donors have been the number one funding mechanism of radical open-border, neo-liberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and non-profits.”
Kirk said Jews control “not just the colleges, it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.”
Remarks like that, whoever makes them, are a danger to every Jew in America.
He equated abortion with the Holocaust, repeatedly misrepresenting abortion as more dangerous than C-sections when in fact it’s safer. He claimed the separation of church and state is not in the Constitution and was “made up by secular humanists” despite it being expressly guaranteed by the First Amendment.
He set up a “Professor Watch List” that put some targeted faculty in fear for their safety.
Here’s how he voiced his fatefully ironic objection to gun control: “I think it’s worth it 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. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
Political provocation
Kirk was entitled to spout his opinions, no matter how they might offend. But the Florida Legislature needs to be mindful of the many people he offended.
Instead, in Boca Raton, FAU’s University Drive would become Charlie James Kirk Drive. In Davie, College Avenue on Broward College’s campus would be Charlie James Kirk Avenue.
The same Legislature has been conspicuously silent about the murder of a fellow lawmaker, the former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, who was gunned down with her husband in June. The accused killer had a notebook of 45 potential victims, most of them Democrats.
Despite the cynical efforts by President Trump and others to exploit Kirk’s murder as evidence of a vast (and imaginary) left-wing conspiracy, most political violence in the U.S. has been of right-wing origin. But whatever the source, it’s wrong.
The Legislature would better honor Kirk and other victims of political violence by establishing an academic institute to promote a respectful, peaceful political dialogue in America.
Slapping Kirk’s name on streets all over the state from the Keys to Pensacola is a provocative act that will only divide us further.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
