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Amid the mourning for Charlie Kirk, and widespread support and empathy for his family, I couldn’t help thinking about another, less obvious loss — the children that Charlie and Erika Kirk likely would have had in the future.
I haven’t seen any clips of either of them talking about how many children they planned to have, but I have to think that they wouldn’t have stopped at two, given the couple’s enthusiasm for family life.
We live in a culture in which many people believe that a child already conceived has no right to life, and so theoretical children have even less sway and may not pass muster in a victim impact statement during the sentencing portion of a capital case. But the loss of future children is part of a surviving partner’s grief, so much so that posthumous sperm retrieval is allowed under certain circumstances, not only for the spouse but in one recent case, for the parents of the person who died.
All of this is simply to say that an assassin’s single bullet can end more than one life.
See Kirk’s argument against abortion in this video clip, in which he also talked about why he supported death penalty.
This ‘powder keg’ rarely ignites. Here’s why
While Utah’s State Fair is over, fair season remains in full swing across the country with some of the biggest yet to come: Texas, Virginia and Arizona among them.
Over the weekend, I spent eight hours at a states fair — the six New England states combine for one event known as “the Big E” — and I was reminded how refreshingly nonpartisan these sorts of gatherings are.
Yes, there were a couple of people wearing “Freedom” T-shirts, and a few people who looked like their TikTok videos could go viral if posted by the conservative account Libs of TikTok. But no one waiting to see the racing pigs or the butter sculpture was talking politics, nor was anyone in the corndog line. They were simply in search of pleasure, thrills and fried things on sticks.
This is ironic, given that in election years, state fairs are must-stump places for politicians, particularly in states like Iowa, where political speeches are as much a part of the event as the Ferris wheel. But again, that’s a testament to their purpleness. Politicians go to state fairs because it’s where ordinary Americans are, even though they run the risk of being photographed eating a pork chop on a stick like Mitt Romney at the Iowa State Fair in 2011.
And as anyone can see by sitting on a bench for 20 minutes and watching the parade of people go by, these ordinary Americans are shockingly diverse.
We may spend much of our lives in ideological and even geographical silos, but we leave that behind when we go through a metal detector and turnstile and are thrown together on a midway, Harris and Trump voters alike. There is no unity quite like the unity of people screaming together on a roller coaster or cooing together over a newborn lamb or chick.
There have been recent attempts to inject partisan acrimony into this generally wholesome environment. Last month, the Great New York State Fair featured a band whose vocalist has said he doesn’t want Trump voters at his shows. There was a ripple of outrage online, but fair officials didn’t take the bait offered by either side and simply issued a statement saying “Everyone is welcome at the Great New York State Fair.” The concert went on without incident.
Similarly, controversy threatened to erupt at the Washington State Fair when Republicans said they were notified that they could not have a booth in their usual place. But the conflict was resolved, and the county GOP chairman told a Seattle television station that after a meeting, “We left on the exact same page. They see our point of view. We respect their concerns.”
Writing for Syracuse.com, Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, warned that state fairs are a “potential powder keg” for free-speech controversies. But he also noted some of the reasons that relatively few have happened:
“Because this is a government venue, many state fairs promulgate guidelines for how and where fairgoers can express themselves, protest or distribute political or religious literature. Many state fairs have designated free speech zones where fairgoers can express themselves. The New York State Fair has five free speech zones. All of them are outside the fair’s gates."
That seems apropos. Everyone welcome, but leave your divisions at the door.
And there are many other places where this still happens— football stadiums and churches, supermarkets and school concerts, to name a few. Civil-warmongers would have us think we’re all snarling at each other’s throats and that there’s no hope for America. The great American state fair suggests otherwise.
Recommended reading
Meagan Kohler watched Erika Kirk’s speech at Sunday’s memorial service in Arizona and found it exemplary.
She writes: “A message focused on faith and family is easy to dismiss as Christian nationalist propaganda, and not without reason. The politicians and pundits who want Christian clout without personal discipleship are as much of a threat to the church as they are to the state. The only thing worse than a godless society might be a godless Christianity wherein the will-to-power wields sacred authority.”
Erika Kirk offers an antidote to Christian nationalism
As chairman of the Special Olympics, Tim Shriver led the campaign to get people to stop using the “R-word.” He argues that Americans need to banish other derogatory labels from our discourse now.
An excerpt: “Once you put a dehumanizing label on someone, it can become not only OK to kill him, but also virtuous. This is the danger of labels. They make us forget that it’s human beings we’re talking about.”
Contempt got us here. Only dignity can get us out
Looking at declining birthrates, Joe Waters says the problem is not just material or structural, but existential:
“Of course, we need children to sustain our workforce, fund pensions and ensure national security. But these arguments, while valid, are insufficient. What ultimately matters for human flourishing is not just that we are rich or secure. It is that we live in a society capable of renewal — moral, spiritual, artistic and cultural — through the constant arrival of new life."
The real crisis behind falling birthrates is a loss of hope
Endnotes
We’re just a few months out from Time magazine naming its person of the year, and while a lot can happen between now and December, I asked Google’s AI who the leading contenders are.
The first suggestion was obvious: Pope Leo, elected to lead the Catholic Church a little more than four months ago. Then, amusingly, AI suggested itself, saying: “A non-person entity is a very real possibility, and AI has continued to reshape industries and spark global discussion throughout 2025. This would follow the precedent of selecting a concept or object, such as the personal computer in 1982.”
Not mentioned was Charlie Kirk, though maybe not for political reasons. In 1963, some people wanted President John F. Kennedy to be selected, with one reader arguing in a letter to the editor, “there can be no disagreement that John F. Kennedy — by his almost incomprehensible death — has changed the world beyond measure.”
Similar arguments will doubtless be made this year about Kirk. And depending on what she does in the next few months, his widow might be a contender. She’s already being talked about online as a vice presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, for a look at what a seasoned prosecutor thinks about the upcoming death-penalty trial for Tyler Robinson, the Utah man charged with Kirk’s death, here’s my conversation with former SC congressman (and current Fox News personality) Trey Gowdy.
As always, thank you for reading and being part of the Right to the Point community. You can reach me at Jgraham@deseret.com, or send me a DM on X, where I’m @grahamtoday.