I usually write about music here, but our times are changing, as they always have, so I thought it was time I said something.

I took a while waiting to post about Charlie Kirk because emotions have been running so high. Obviously. It’s polarized the country in so many ways.

First and foremost, my heart goes out to his wife and kids. No young family should ever have to face what they’re facing now. Violence of any kind is abhorrent to me, and this kind of political violence damages everyone. We all feel less safe, we all feel attacked. We have the right to speak, all of us, and that right is sacrosanct in America. We have to fight for that right, as has been seen just these last weeks, in the Trump administration’s action against Jimmy Kimmel and the rapid blowback from all sides, especially the people voting with their dollars, but also from those in both political parties, standing resolute in protecting the First Amendment against this administration’s off-the-rails assertion of dictatorial power.

Charlie Kirk, like all of us, had the right to express his views, no matter how antithetical they are to some of us. That’s the freedom we have here. The litany of dogmatic and marginalizing things Kirk said, however, point not just to his own beliefs, but to a rabid strain of fundamentalist Christian ideology. It’s similar in degree to the extremism of its Muslim counterparts. We can see the inevitable outcome in countries where all rights have been stripped, except to right to be a strict fundamentalist of that particular viewpoint.

This is the future battleground of America. Christian fundamentalist nationalism, versus the rest of us. It’s been festering. I’ve been watching it grow and mutate for some time. It’s particularly viral in the regard that it can change and adapt to social trends and work on susceptible people, playing on their sincere Christian belief. It’s not going away.

Assassination is never the answer, violence doesn’t work. Killing a spokesman doesn’t eliminate the idea. This fundamentalist trend has become rooted in American society now, strongly established, and we have to fight it wherever it rears it malignant, anti-American head. How? By exposing it for its lack of humanity, lack of heart, lack of caring and lack of the understanding that we’re all the same, that we all dropped out of the one great human tree. Our differences are what distinguish us, make us interesting, make it a vibrant and colorful human garden, with countless expanding beneficial aspects for all to share. We see incredible diversity in nature. Why should it be different for people? We have to point out how our diversity is amazing, wonderful, and enriching, and attempts at marginalization of anyone or any group lessens everyone, especially those doing the advocating. As we clearly see in them, in their reduction of people to categories, in their bigotry based upon cherry-picked passages of scripture, in their qualifying of what the human divinity is in all of us, fundamentalists themselves become strange human beings, setting themselves apart from humanity as a whole.

We ourselves have to see beyond our boundaries, our differences, become more embracing to all, and yes, even our foes. Exactly as Jesus said. Shared humanity touches the negating heart. That’s what we have to do. Become examples of what’s better. That’s the fight.

But be assured and aware, this is going to be a long battle.

This is not just one guy talking.