Like many family households across America, ours has been home to conversations about the tragic killing of white Christian nationalist Charlie Kirk.

It doesn’t matter what religion or creed guides you. Children have been disturbed by the non-stop, all-consuming reporting on this horrific act.

As parents, it would be neglectful for us not to give our kids the resources they need at this fraught moment in our country’s history. We have been mindful in helping them to remember that Kirk was a father and husband. His family must be allowed to grieve his loss with dignity.

Like many Americans, I have been deeply offended by and steadfastly disagree with his advocacy for and vision of a white Christian hegemony in the U.S.

I also love people who love him.

They don’t love him because of racist statements he regularly made. They haven’t combed through myriad episodes of podcasts where he espoused ideology that most reasonable people would find egregiously offensive.

No, they loved him because he told them that it was okay to be white and Christian in this country. And guess what: it is okay to be white and Christian in this country, just like it is okay to be white and Atheist in this country, just like it’s okay to be white and Jewish.

I’m a white-eligible Jew who grew up and went to school on the west coast and built my career on the east coast. I am the apotheosis of what the right now calls the liberal elite. Nearly 16 years ago, I married into a white Christian family from southeast Texas who supports the current U.S. administration.

Over years of traveling from Texas to California, New York, and Europe, I’ve come to learn that people pigeonhole me as a white guy from southeast Texas. They assume and expect I hold certain attitudes and beliefs. Even my nuclear family derides me for being from Texas. It’s been an unfortunate but eye-opening experience.

I understand why people I love love Kirk. Not because he was a racist, although he was. Even he conceded that his advocacy was racist. But he also created a space where white Christian people felt welcomed. I, for one, believe we should give them space to grieve their loss with dignity.