Locals attend campus area vigil for Charlie Kirk

A vigil in honor of Charlie Kirk was held on Oct. 14 at the amphitheater in Alum Creek Park. Lance Preston, the founder of an up-and-coming Turning Point chapter at Otterbein, was among the speakers at the event.

The person who started this event is a local Westerville resident, Kayla Crawford. She had attended a vigil in honor of Charlie Kirk previously and believed there was potential for a larger event.  

Crawford invited other speakers, including Ryan Tackett, a pastor at a nondenominational church located about an hour from campus, and Luke Brooks, the president of Good for Westerville.

While both Tackett and Brooks came to speak about different things, they both attribute their speaking out to Kirk. Tackett says that he noticed that "there was a really strong effort to silence voices." He talked about how he wanted people who came to the vigil to be able to hear the gospel. He also said he wants people to add "anything that comes out tonight" to their foundation or "make it their foundation in life."

Brooks said he came to the vigil to encourage people to be engaged, regardless of their perspective. As the president of Good for Westerville, Brooks talked about the group's core values: "the core values are around tradition and progress, and harmony and the importance of having civil dialogue."

Preston believes that this organization will be a safe space for Christian conservatives on campus who believe they don’t get the space to speak their mind. “Our whole mission is that everyone will come to faith and God,” said Preston. 

A main topic mentioned in Preston's speech is the idea of “The Charlie Kirk effect.” This is where conservative voices feel they can’t speak their political views in social situations because it isn’t widely accepted — except that it is widely accepted. Preston believes the silent majority supports the idea of traditional values, but they are afraid to speak their mind.

On Oct. 30, President Comerford sent out an email to the staff saying, "Disagreeing with a position is not a reason to ban it from campus."

On the Turning Point at Otterbein Instagram page, there is a link to a Google Form where people who are interested in joining can leave comments. Preston said there was a pattern in responses. "I’ve seen it in our interest for responses and people, that basically every comment … has been, you know, I realize I can no longer be silenced." There have also been negative comments under certain posts about Turning Point's rhetoric, including a video of Preston speaking about Turning Point's values. They later took the video down after a few days. 

Turning Point plans to have future tabling events where others on campus can debate with members of Turning Point about various topics.

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