Stephen King Apologizes and Deletes Tweet Falsely Claiming Charlie Kirk Wanted to Stone Gay People

 

Author Stephen King has apologized for and deleted a tweet in which he claimed that the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk believed in stoning gay people.

On Wednesday, shortly after Kirk was assassinated earlier that day, Fox News’ Jesse Watters tweeted, “Charlie Kirk was not a ‘controversial’ or ‘polarizing’ man. Charlie was a PATRIOT. THIS is a turning point and we all need to turn in the right direction. Rest in peace, my friend.”

“He advocated stoning gays to death. Just sayin’,” replied King.

But Kirk never did that. In a widely-circulated clip from his show, Kirk, who opposed gay marriage, challenged the assertion of YouTuber Mr. Rachel that Pride celebrations were morally acceptable for Christians because the Bible instructs readers to “love your neighbor.”

“Ms. Rachel, you might wanna crack open that Bible of yours, in a lesser referenced part of the same part of scripture is in Leviticus 18 is that thou shall lay with another man, shall be stoned to death,” observed Kirk, who was making a point about taking Scripture out of context, in the clip.

In another popular clip, Kirk welcomes a young gay man to the conservative movement while expressing disagreement with his lifestyle.

King has since admitted his error.

“I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays. What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages,” wrote King in a post on Friday.

Responding to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who called him “a horrible, evil, twisted liar” and asked “Why are you so dishonest & filled with hate?”, King wrote “The horrible, evil, twisted liar apologizes. This is what I get for reading something on Twitter w/o fact-checking. Won’t happen again.”

King isn’t the only one to misquote Kirk after his murder. The New York Times also affixed the following correction to a story headlined, “Where Charlie Kirk Stood on Key Political Issues”:

An earlier version of this article described incorrectly an antisemitic statement that Charlie Kirk had made on an episode of his podcast. He was quoting a statement from a post on social media and went on to critique it. It was not his own statement.

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