95 House Dems, Including Trans Rep McBride, Vote To "Honor The Legacy" Of Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk, an anti-LGBTQ+ activist who was killed a week ago, had a history of hateful rhetoric and extremism.

Charlie Kirk // Gage Skidmore // Creative Commons

Last week, far-right activist and anti-LGBTQ+ influencer Charlie Kirk was killed by a gunman in Utah—the latest in a grim pattern of political violence. In the days since, his life has been aggressively sanitized. Figures across media and politics have lionized a man who repeatedly trafficked in extremist hate, called for opponents to be jailed or executed, and stoked relentless hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community. Some went so far as to say he was “practicing politics the right way.” Others, who pointed to his record of bigotry, have been punished for speaking out. Now Congress has joined in the revisionism, passing a resolution to “honor the life and legacy” of Kirk and falsely declaring that he “worked tirelessly to promote unity.” Roughly half of House Democrats voted in favor—including Rep. Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress.

“Charlie Kirk was a fierce defender of the American founding and its timeless principles of life, liberty, limited government, and individual responsibility,” the resolution reads—conveniently eliding his relentless campaign against the liberties of LGBTQ+ people. It praises him for engaging in “respectful, civil discourse,” even though he once said Black pilots made him wonder if they were “qualified” and called transgender people an “abomination unto God.” And it claims he “worked tirelessly to promote unity,” despite his calls to execute President Biden for treason.

You can read the full resolution here.

Despite his record, the resolution even went so far as to call Kirk a “model for young Americans.” Ninety-five Democrats voted in favor, while 118 registered “nay,” “present,” or did not vote. Among those voting yes was Rep. Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress. McBride has already faced criticism for what some have seen as a hesitant approach to transgender rights—most notably in an interview with Ezra Klein where she suggested standards of care for trans youth “might have gotten too lenient” and urged moderation on transgender rights. Notably, Klein himself recently published a column casting Kirk as “practicing politics the right way.”

Many noted, in the aftermath of McBride’s vote, that Kirk had personally attacked her—calling her a “man” and claiming she wanted “to force all of society to change its laws to indulge [her] sexual fetish,” hardly the “respectful and civil discourse” the resolution insisted he embodied.

Among those who voted no, present, or abstained were some of the House’s most progressive Democrats—Pramila Jayapal, who has a transgender child, joined Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib and several others in rejecting the resolution. Multiple “moderates” also voted against honoring Kirk, including Seth Moulton, who himself once came under fire for anti-trans comments in the aftermath of Trump’s election. All in all, a majority of Democrats in the house opposed or did not vote for the measure, which passed with full Republican support.

Charlie Kirk has faced a wave of criticism since his death. While Gavin Newsom initially urged Americans to “honor” him and even to “continue his work”—a suggestion met with open jeers from many Democrats—the tone shifted quickly as more people confronted the record of what Kirk actually said, and many have since openly criticized Kirk’s legacy and the whitewashing of it. The criticism of Kirk, however, has been met by an equally aggressive counteroffensive on the right: journalists and other citizens have lost jobs for refusing to endorse the sanitized narrative of his life, and even Jimmy Kimmel was fired after daring to mention Kirk and Republicans in anything other than a positive light.

For many Democrats, silence on Kirk’s record risked whitewashing his legacy, and they held firm by refusing to back the measure. Their votes were a reminder that honoring Charlie Kirk without confronting the hate he spread is an implicit endorsement of his legacy—one that most in the party were unwilling to make. You can view the full tally of who did and did not vote for the resolution at the congressional vote website.