Daily Wire's Michael Knowles Posts Family Proclamation in Response to KSL Branding Him a "Far-Right Commentator"
- Luke Hanson
- Apr 10, 2024
- 2 min read
Self-declared "mackerel-snapping papist" Michael Knowles spoke at the University of Utah on Monday evening and had his fair share of exposure to "the Mormons" during and after the event.
Knowles, a popular conservative pundit from The Daily Wire, gave a speech titled "Transgenerism: America's Problem". After the event, Knowles sat down with reporter Joseph Addington from The Cougar Chronicle, an independent conservative student publication at BYU.
Addington presented Knowles with an inscribed leather-bound triple combination before the interview. "Thank you for my gift of the inscribed personalized Book of Mormon." Knowles said at the end of the interview "I promise you this is the first one of these I've ever received."
Off-camera Addington asked Knowles if he had ever read the Book of Mormon. He admitted that he had attempted it once in a hotel room at night, but had fallen asleep.
In the interview, Addington asked, "What can we Christians do to stand up and fight this progressive reinterpretation of Christianity?"
"One needs some authority and this is an area where the Mormons and the Catholics I think might have a little clearer insight than some of our other brethren in the faith," Knowles responded. He continued, "Unfortunately an aspect of many of the protestant denominations is a kind of individualism and this is why you'll hear of church splits and things like that...if one accepts the authority of the church that's probably going to keep you a little bit more on the straight and narrow especially if [it is] a well-grounded authority."
The day after the event, the Church-owned KSL news published a story of the event calling Knowles a "far-right" political commentator. The piece featured a picture of the protestors rather than the event and began by rehashing a controversy where Knowles's speech was misinterpreted as him saying he wanted to "eradicate" all transgender people. Knowles took to X (formerly Twitter) to respond. "I'm no expert on LDS theology, but as far as politics goes, I agree with every single political prescription in this document. Does that make me "far-right," LDS "far-right," or @KSLcom far-left (and out of step with its putative church)?" Knowles asked with an attached screenshot of The Family: A Proclamation to the World.