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The following is a response to a comment on a Facebook post that is only available to friends of the original poster. I thought it might be of general interest because of the research I did to identify the origin of the oft-repeated, but never verified, claim that Charlie Kirk advocated the execution of homosexual individuals. It is posted here because when I tried to post this content on Facebook, the post was immediately removed.

To be fair, I don't think it was removed because it brings clarity to a lie that has been propagated about Charlie Kirk. My guess is that it was blocked because it discusses the topic of executing individuals for homosexual activity.

Let me state up front that I do not believe that anyone should be executed for engaging in any kind of sexual activity, regardless of what may have been the standard thousands of years ago under Mosaic Law.

Gove Allen

Here a link to the post on Facebook that points to this document:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1621AiSY38/

Here's my comment to the person on Facebook who reposted the lie that Charlie Kirk was in favor of executing homosexuals.

Christopher, you said: “He [Charlie Kirk] also falsely quoted Leviticus on a radio show in order to show his support for Biblical law, while also stating that the ‘scripture’ that he was quoting was biblical direction to commit genocide against homosexuals.”

Here, you do not provide a reference for your claim, so it’s difficult to be sure I have found the incident to which you are referring. I’m unable to find any evidence of Kirk quoting Leviticus on a radio show, let alone misquoting. However, I was able to find considerable discussion about him quoting Leviticus, including a (now deleted) post on X by Steven King. According to the New York Post, here’s the post by King, made the day after Kirk was killed:

“He advocated stoning gays to death. Just sayin.”

(https://nypost.com/.../stephen-king-ripped-for-horrible.../)

King appears to have deleted the original post and has posted the following apology:

“I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays. What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages.”

(https://x.com/StephenKing/status/1966474125616013664)

All of this seems to be in response to the following podcast, available at (https://omny.fm/.../thoughtcrime-ep-48-trump-rally..., time indices 1:00:30 – 1:03:12).

Kirk does misquote Leviticus 18. He claims that it says:

“Thou shall lay with another man shall be stoned to death.” (time index 1:02:41)

He seems to be trying to recall from memory verse 22, which reads, in the King James Version, as follows:

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

The penalty attached to this behavior, and other sexual acts, appears in verse 29:

“For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.”

So the penalty specified here seems to be banishment, not execution. So, I think that the first part of your claim (“He also falsely quoted Leviticus”) is accurate.

It is likely that the verse he was trying to recall is Leviticus 20:13, which reads as follows:

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

So, although he has misquoted the text, he has not unfairly twisted what the book of Leviticus says regarding the penalty for specific homosexual activity under Mosaic Law. More importantly, if you will take the time to listen to the audio segment (it’s less than three minutes) you will see that Kirk is not referring to the scripture to support any argument that people who engage in homosexual activity should be executed. What he is doing, as Steven King points out, is demonstrating how some people quote selective passages from the bible to support a specific agenda, even when that agenda is in conflict with other parts of the bible—even when the ignored passages are in close proximity to the selected passages.

So, in totality, your assertion that he stated “that the ‘scripture’ that he was quoting was biblical direction to commit genocide against homosexuals” is simply false. In the audio segment, he offers no commentary about how this part of Mosaic Law should be treated today.

Lest my words in this post should be taken out of context, let me explicitly assert that I do not believe that people who engage in homosexual activity should be put to death.

While I was doing the research to find the origin of your claim, I realized something really interesting. While it was easy to find many people claiming that Charlie Kirk had advocated the execution of homosexuals, it was very difficult to find the reference to the origin of the claims. And while I’m relatively certain I have found his original words that have led to this claim, it is very telling that none of the posts and articles that I observed claiming Kirk has genocidal intent for homosexuals referenced Kirk’s actual statements. It is not because it is difficult to do. In fact, the official website for the Charlie Kirk Show, where the original audio is hosted, has a one-click tool to generate a link to the podcast, including the ability to start at a particular time index.

So, Christopher, you have been led astray by people who have told falsities about what Charlie Kirk has said and what Charlie Kirk believed. You appear to have accepted this misinformation as truth without making much effort to verify its veracity. I suspect this is just what Tyler Robinson did, and it lies at the heart of why he harbored such hate for the man that he chose to respond with a bullet.

This is not just a problem with those on the left of the political spectrum. It is natural for all of us to believe the information we receive from a trusted source. But when we engage to spread information we do not know to be true as if it were true, we help contribute to a polarized society that prompts people to respond with violence. Because it takes effort to verify and cite information, the vast majority of us are willing to spread information that we do not know to be true, myself included. In that sense, nearly all of us share some blame for creating the environment that led to Charlie Kirk’s death.