Charlie Kirk, who was tragically murdered during a speaking event on September 10, 2025, was many things: a conservative activist, a campus debater, founder of Turning Point USA, a husband, and a father. He was also someone who believed in specific core values above almost everything else. While he discussed a variety of topics with thousands of willing debaters for more than a decade, there were vital values that underpinned everything he said and every point he made, regardless of the audience. The three that stood out above all were his dedication to faith, family, and free speech. Across conservative publications and tributes, these are the themes that recur again and again.

Here’s a look at what those meant for him, and how others saw them in his life.

Faith was central to how Charlie Kirk defined himself. In multiple interviews and public statements, he positioned Christianity not just as a private belief but as something that should guide both your public life and your personal conduct. During one of his many speeches, he described how important it was to include faith in any conversation in order to be effective in the overall messaging. “You have to try to point them toward ultimate purposes and toward getting back to the church, getting back to faith, getting married, having children,” he said. “That is the type of conservatism that I represent, and I’m trying to paint a picture of virtue, of lifting people up, not just staying angry.”

A piece in Deseret News put Charlie’s unwavering conviction in simple terms: “Charlie Kirk used his platform to tell young Americans what too few say: Serve God, build a family, and be brave.” This sums up how faith shaped both the message Kirk wanted to promote and the kind of example he tried to set.

Family — marriage, parenthood, stable households — was another pillar in what he preached. To him, family was the most critical component of a moral foundation for society. It wasn’t just a social unit, but a responsibility. In interviews and debates, he often linked social problems to breakdowns in family structure, arguing that strong families lead to stronger communities. Faith leads to responsibility, which in turn centers on the family.

Even people who didn’t agree with him politically recognized that he saw family as part of the “permanent things” — values and institutions that, in his view, are more lasting than the shifting priorities in politics.

Free speech was perhaps the value that Kirk defended most visibly in public life. He saw the First Amendment not as an academic ideal, but as a daily necessity: the right to speak, to debate, and to challenge prevailing orthodoxy — especially on campuses, where he believed, and as backed up by countless reported experiences from right-leaning students, that conservative voices were marginalized.

Kirk’s assassination underscores how dangerous it becomes when speech is equated with violence — a belief that leftists have effectively instilled in their base over the last several years. Kirk said, “When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence.” That is characteristic of how he spoke about the First Amendment. He constantly reminded his listeners that free speech is not merely about being comfortable; it’s about engaging in disagreement, risk, possibly even criticism, and about preserving the right to speak at any cost.

In a National Review article titled “Don’t Let Civil Discourse Die With Charlie Kirk,” Hillsdale College student Moira Gleason wrote, “The respect with which he engaged every person who approached him, no matter what they looked like or what they said, models civil discourse at its best.” Many young conservatives saw Kirk as someone who shaped an entire generation by being willing to engage in uncomfortable conversations and showing them how to do so in their own lives.

Kirk frequently addressed, and even invited discussions about controversial subjects — abortion, gun rights, race, gender identity — not from the sidelines but by entering debates, anywhere that would have him. Some saw this as provocation. But it was simply based on the right to speak and be heard. The tragedy of his death, for many of his supporters, is that he died while upholding one of America’s most fundamental rights, which is to vocalize what you believe, regardless of what it is. And his death was eye-opening to the masses, of how dangerous it truly is when that right is threatened.

Ultimately, faith, family, and free speech weren’t separate pieces of his identity but deeply intertwined. Faith wasn’t just private; it was something he believed should guide public virtue and debate. Family was the arena in which faith was expressed and passed on. Free speech was the mechanism by which all of the above could be defended, challenged, and spread. To Charlie, being a Christian meant that your voice mattered; to protect family meant that your upbringing, your relationships, and your moral commitments mattered; and to protect speech meant that others who disagreed with or even despised you still had a right to be heard.

Of course, many of the things he said drew sharp criticism. Critics accused him of using inflammatory rhetoric and emphasizing culture war issues in ways that some saw as divisive. But even among those who criticized him, many acknowledged that he lived what he preached in terms of defending speech and bringing faith and family into political and social conversations.

Charlie Kirk’s life and work demonstrate a deep commitment to the core values he saw as foundational. Whether you agreed with him or not, he made clear what he believed, he gathered people around those beliefs, and he fought for everyone’s right to do the same. In a moment when cultural polarization, political violence, and debates over speech rights are becoming sharper, his supporters see his legacy as a call not to abandon free disagreement, not to diminish the importance of the family unit, and not to retreat from faith in public life.