Not-Neil

"God loves you, you are a part of this movement, and we've got your back." It was the most important thing Charlie Kirk ever said to me. As some rejoice in his death, I remember his humanity. He was a great man who worked very hard to be a good one, too.

The evening this photo was taken, Charlie and I were hounded by people in the audience who hurled hatred at me for being gay and Charlie for giving me a platform. The crowd got unruly and rowdy, and afterwards we sat in a holding room waiting for our escort and car out. I was shaken. I hadn’t experienced anything like it before. Charlie looked me directly in the eyes and said this: “God loves you, you are a part of this movement, and we’ve got your back.” Charlie and TPUSA always did, though I was too deeply immature and new to the realities of being a public figure that I didn’t realize how much they actually did support and protect me in a myriad of different ways. That is who Charlie Kirk was. I will not allow his humanity to be reduced to soundbites spread by people who never met him and want to use his Biblical beliefs as an excuse to paint him as a hateful, extremist caricature. Charlie was about growing the movement. He always knew that politics is about addition and not subtraction. I am but one of the many public figures supported and created by Charlie. This is why he will never be forgotten. This is why his legend and movement will only grow. It’s not that he was just a great man, but that he was also a good one. Few are both, but Charlie was. There will be nothing that I do for the rest of my existence in public life that isn’t directly influenced by his belief in me when it mattered. You are with the Father, my brother in Christ. Rest in Peace.