Charlie Kirk's group works with sex offender despite Kirk's 'groomer' claims against Target: report
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Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA Teamed Up With a Registered Sex Offender
"Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk is cheerleading the far-right boycott of Target over the retailer’s Pride collection — which included trans-friendly youth apparel and other LGBTQ-positive gear — for what Kirk decries as “their support for grooming kids.”
Kirk’s condemnation of the retailer coincided with TPUSA’s second-annual Pastors Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, this past week, where Kirk also denounced Target, telling a crowd of hundreds of religious leaders: “If you love God, you must hate evil.”
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Yet in delivering these fevered messages about morality and child welfare, Kirk had an odd benefactor, a man whose criminal history opens up TPUSA to charges of hypocrisy.
Rolling Stone has learned that one of the TPUSA summit’s corporate sponsors is a Christian fashion company that is led by a registered sex offender, Shawn Bergstrand, who served time in federal prison for attempted “coercion and enticement” after trying to persuade “a minor female” to “engage in sexual activity.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said that TPUSA Faith “was not aware of this incident” but emphasized that, as an “exhibit sponsor,” Bergstrand was not a speaker, organizer, or “professing doctrine from the stage.”
“One of the core tenets of the Christian faith is forgiveness rooted in repentance. After discussing the issue with him, we believe [it] was critical to bringing him to faith,” Kolvet added. “He doesn’t hide from what happened, he instead posts his testimony online on his company website. TPUSA Faith will not toss away a repentant, decent person because of a mistake that happened over a decade before, or because a leftwing outlet wants to write a hit piece on the amazing work our team is doing.” Kolvet included a reference to Colossians 3:13, a Bible verse that reads, in part, “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
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