On September 18 of last year — eight days after her husband Charlie Kirk was murdered — Erika Kirk was appointed by the board of Turning Point USA to succeed her husband as the chief executive officer of Turning Point USA. Turning Point USA is a highly funded and influential organization in America, and it has a focus on helping determine who is elected to what political offices, as well as what measures politicians support and oppose.
Since Erika Kirk became CEO of Turning Point, employees and associates of the organization have repeatedly sought to counter criticism of her by saying that it is improper to criticize a widow. But, Erika Kirk is about as far as possible from the typical widow who, if employed, works at a job of little or no political consequence. Indeed, Erika Kirk has assumed a role that thrusts her into the attention of the public and involves the exercise of influence that plays a significant role in determining the future of governmental actions in America.
To say that people should refrain from criticizing Erika Kirk is to say that they should give up the exercise of a portion of their participation in the political system. If government were to legislate that people are barred from communicating such criticism, it would be a clear violation of the First Amendment, a primary purpose of which is to ensure that just such speech flourishes in America.
Of course, criticism of widows involved in politics occurs routinely without a second thought. The case of Erika Kirk is just unique because Turning Point employees and associates have kept insisting that such criticism of the Turning Point CEO should never happen. Consider, for example, the widows serving in the United States Congress. How many of the female representatives and senators in Congress are widows? I have no idea. Neither does almost anyone else. Let’s guess there are ten widows in Congress. Just about nobody is suggesting that they be immune from criticism because they are widows. Such an asserted protection for them would be obviously absurd. Their votes and statements involving political maters affect the lives of many people. Those affected people as well as others have a right, and some would assert even a duty, to challenge those votes and statements when judged sufficiently wrong or threatening. The same goes for widows who hold other elected offices, appointed positions where they guide or implement policy, and judgeships. The same also goes for Erika Kirk and other widows who from the outside exercise significant influence on government.
Perhaps the most egregious assertion that Erika Kirk, because she is a widow, should not be criticized came from Dana Loesch, whose work has largely been as a political commentator. Loesch spoke Saturday at the Turning Point USA Women’s Leadership Summit in San Antonio, Texas. Loesch’s speech was consumed largely by presenting a series of Bible references in supposed support of her conclusion that nobody should say anything critical of Erika Kirk and that those who do so are working on behalf of Satan. It is ridiculous enough that people working for and associated with Turning Point keep making the preposterous assertion that it is out of bounds for people to criticize the organization’s CEO because she is a widow. Twisting Bible verses to give the assertion the image of a divine command is taking things to another level of absurdity.
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