In a show of both courage and self-confidence, Erika Kirk gave an interview to the bitterly hostile New York Times. In the event, the Timesmen apparently realized that this was not the time to vent their spleen, and the interview is mostly anodyne. It does include this brief caricature of Charlie Kirk’s work:
…lionized on the right as an inspiration to young Republicans and pilloried on the left for his attacks on civil rights, feminism and Islam.
Charlie was much more, of course, than “an inspiration to young Republicans,” and by “civil rights” I take it they mean the right of men to compete in women’s sports.
But this was the part I found interesting:
On the evening before Mr. Kirk traveled to Utah, he and his wife met for dinner in the Phoenix area with a friend who was a faith leader. The purpose was to pray together over Mr. Kirk’s imminent tour of roughly 20 campuses. Both Ms. Kirk and the friend were worried.
Mr. Kirk, whose appearances on college campuses drew ardent support and fierce condemnation, had received numerous death threats over the past year and had been traveling with a security team for months. Over dinner, Ms. Kirk implored her husband to start wearing a bulletproof vest. When he demurred, the friend suggested that Mr. Kirk speak behind bulletproof glass.
“Not yet,” Mr. Kirk replied. He said he felt confident in his team, and that there would be additional security at the Utah event. But Ms. Kirk, like several of her husband’s subordinates, had occasionally heard him imply that his life could be cut short by violence. She found herself wondering if a part of him had already surrendered to such a prospect.
Most people who are active in public life on the right get death threats, and Charlie must have gotten more than anyone. Given the volume of violence coming from the left in recent years, they have to be taken seriously.
No doubt Kirk’s widow and friends will be haunted by that “Not yet.” But it doesn’t surprise me that a man who dedicated his life to free speech and to the Christian faith would be reluctant to adopt any security measures that would distance him from the crowds that he came to reason with. And there are worse fates than martyrdom.
The Times article is worth reading in its entirety, if you can get past the paywall. This is how it ends:
She added, “I’ve had so many people ask, ‘Do you feel anger toward this man? Like, do you want to seek the death penalty?’ I’ll be honest. I told our lawyer, I want the government to decide this. I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger. Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’ And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie?”
I suspect the people at the Times believe they successfully portrayed Charlie and Erika Kirk as religious cranks. But I am not sure everyone will see it that way.
