\n<\/p>\n
Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma introduced legislation this week that would require every public university in the state to construct \u201ca Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza\u201d, with a statue of the assassinated Republican activist and a sign calling him a \u201cmodern civil rights leader\u201d, or pay monthly fines.<\/p>\n
The proposed legislation comes as conservatives pay tribute to the murdered activist and podcaster, whose life will be commemorated by the president at a service in Arizona on Sunday, by comparing him to martyred political and spiritual leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr and Saint Paul.<\/p>\n
The Oklahoma bill, sponsored by state senators Shane Jett and Dana Prieto, specifies that the memorial site must be in \u201ca prominent area\u201d on the main campus of every institution of higher education in the state system, and must include \u201ca statue of Charlie Kirk sitting at a table with an empty seat across from him\u201d or one of Kirk and his wife holding their children. Designs for the statue must be approved by the legislature.<\/p>\n
Each plaza must also include \u201cpermanent signage commemorating Charlie Kirk\u2019s courage and faith and explaining the significance of Charlie Kirk as a voice of a generation, modern civil rights leader, vocal Christian, martyr for truth and faith, and free speech advocate\u201d.<\/p>\n
The state-dictated reference to Kirk as a civil rights leader echoes the widespread effort on the right to cast the founder of the conservative youth group Turning Point USA as a figure equivalent to Martin Luther King Jr, a man Kirk once called \u201cawful\u201d.<\/p>\n
After everyone from a Georgia representative to a deputy chief of the New York police department made the comparison with MLK, the slain civil rights leader\u2019s son, Martin Luther King III, took time this week to reject it, noting that Kirk had accused prominent Black women of lacking \u201cthe brain processing power to be taken seriously\u201d, while his father \u201cwas about bringing people together\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re doing that, it\u2019s a disservice to unification,\u201d King told a reporter in Virginia. Kirk, he said, \u201ccertainly was a force in this society and a significant force, but I just disagree with the position that his force was about inclusiveness. When you denigrate Black women and say that somebody is in a position just because of the color of their skin, that\u2019s gravely false.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, another of King\u2019s children, Bernice King, responded to a meme of Kirk alongside her father, as well as Jesus, John F Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, by writing: \u201cThere are so many things wrong with this. So many. I get tired, y\u2019all.\u201d The meme had been posted on social media by Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican representative who got her start in politics as an aide to Kirk.<\/p>\n
If the Oklahoma measure becomes law, every school would be required to submit plans for its memorial plaza and statue to the legislature for approval. Failure to comply with the required memorial to Kirk would be punishable by a monthly fine of 1% of the school\u2019s appropriated budget.<\/p>\n
The bill also mandates that the schools take measures to protect their memorials from vandalism and automatically expel any students caught defacing them.<\/p>\n
Despite widespread praise from Republicans for Kirk having founded the nation\u2019s largest network of conservative student groups, recent polling suggests that was broadly unpopular on college campuses. Research done for Puck last week revealed that 70% of students surveyed, at community colleges, technical colleges, trade schools, and public and private four-year institutions, said that they disagreed with Kirk\u2019s views. Just 30% said they agreed with what he had to say.<\/p>\n
As the Oklahoman reports, both lawmakers behind the bill are members of the Oklahoma freedom caucus, an affiliate of the national far-right Republican group formed in 2015 by members of Congress.<\/p>\n
One of the lawmakers, Jett, praised Kirk in explicitly religious terms, calling him \u201ca faithful servant of Christ\u201d. Last year, Jett criticized a bipartisan bill to restrict corporal punishment against students with disabilities by citing the Old Testament proverb, \u201cWhoever spares the rod hates their child\u201d, during a debate in the state house.<\/p>\n
A prominent Catholic leader, the cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, called Kirk \u201ca modern-day Saint Paul\u201d, during an appearance on Fox News on Friday. \u201cHe was a missionary, he\u2019s an evangelist, he\u2019s a hero.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s false by any measure,\u201d John Grosso of the National Catholic Reporter wrote in response to Dolan\u2019s tribute. \u201cAny reflection on the legacy of Kirk cannot gloss over the pain and suffering that Kirk inflicted on innumerable people through his harsh, divisive and combative rhetoric,\u201d Grosso argued, adding: \u201cIn any conversations about Kirk\u2019s legacy, we cannot ignore his racism, sexism and xenophobia.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund who has been representing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in talks about the war in Ukraine with the Trump administration, wrote on X that he \u201chad very positive discussions with the Russian Orthodox Church on recognizing Charlie Kirk\u2019s spiritual contributions to Christianity\u201d. Hours later, he shared an orthodox bishop\u2019s tribute to Kirk, headlined: \u201cThe example of Charlie Kirk is a lesson for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Russian bishop praised Kirk for his willingness to preach his conservative, Christian ideology on American college campuses, calling it \u201cnot unlike preaching somewhere among a tribe of cannibals\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma introduced legislation this week that would require every public university in the state to construct \u201ca Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza\u201d, with a statue of the assassinated Republican activist and a sign calling him a \u201cmodern civil rights leader\u201d, or pay monthly fines. The proposed legislation comes as conservatives pay tribute to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[7176,4673,12560,192,3577,4627,199,2097],"class_list":{"0":"post-22830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-charlie","9":"tag-colleges","10":"tag-kirk","11":"tag-oklahoma","12":"tag-propose","13":"tag-republicans","14":"tag-state","15":"tag-statue"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}