Anyone following local Arkansas politics, knows the legend of State Senator Jason Rapert, defender of the majority from the tyranny of the minority. His fights against the spread of the same sex marriage (or as us decent people call it, marriage) throughout the state and country have been legendary. For those of you that have never truly heard about him fighting the good fight, have a seat, pour some wine, and open your ears and minds for I am going to give you a refresher course on his defense for “the will of the people.”
Way back in the late aughts of 2004, the people of Arkansas voted on Amendment 83 that effectively banned same sex marriage (see above: just marriage) in the state of Arkansas. To get a good grip on the mindset of people in both Arkansas and the country as a whole 13 years ago, you have to remember that this is before both Justin Timberlake had sexually reawakened the nation by bringing sexy back in 2006 and before Brokeback Mountain made us realize that even cowboys, as rugged as they are, can be gay too. We were basically Puritans back then.
After ten years of uninterrupted marital bliss in the state, evil was afoot when Circuit Court Judge Chris Piazza struck down the amendment as unconstitutional. This threw our beloved hero into a fit of rage so paramount to his agenda that he was allowed to write a hissy fit of a persecution complex disguised as an editorial in the June 1, 2014 edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The editorial is a mish-mash of talking points about the “homosexual lobby,” which I assume is a more stylish entrance to a building, to all the ways in which Christians are persecuted for trying to indoctrinate a belief system into law. Most importantly, within his editorial Rapert centers the case for why Amendment 83 should remain on the books around Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address idea of “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
The general argument of piece by Rapert is that the federal government is bending to the will of a minority against the will of the majority. Rapert has decided that the will of the people from the pre-Brokeback era of 2004 is enough to combat the general cultural changes in attitudes about the ickiness of gay people that ultimately led to the decision. The people had voted a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage and Rapert felt that “Federal government only has power specifically given to it ‘by the states’ all other powers are reserved to the states and ‘to the people.'”
Which brings us and our titular hero to his sponsored piece of legislation, Senate Bill 238. I like to call this act, AN ACT TO TRY TO OVERTURN THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE WHEN IT’S ABOUT SOMETHING THAT YOU DON’T LIKE. The gist of the bill is that since marijuana is illegal nationwide, Arkansas shouldn’t implement any rules regarding that sale of marijuana for medical purposes until that changes. Any rules that Arkansas would work to implement would be cumbersome and “an unwise expenditure of public resources” within the state of Arkansas, which was exactly one of the criticisms opponents of the continued push against letting gay people marry each other.
The “We the People” Senator seems to have taken a precipitous fall from grace in just 3 years. How can one who believed so strongly the will of people was more important than the government overreach of those baddies in D.C. sponsor such a legislation? Our Senator of the people, for the people, by the people couldn’t have just become another stooge for Washington special interests, for he was definitely still keeping up the fight against same sex marriage. He even tried to get a Constitutional Convention called to amend the U.S. Constitution. That’s how far he was willing to go to protect the rights of the majority in Arkansas.
Here’s a tweet from two months after submitting the legislation.
Where had our hero gone when it came to protecting our rights against federal overreach when it comes a separate constitutional amendment?!
In the darkest hours, When I see senators like Jason Rapert surreptitiously try to circumvent the will of people for their own agenda, I remember there are a few people in the Arkansas legislature fighting for Arkansans day in and out. They see our struggle and know that we know what’s best for our state. They have no qualms stating:
I respond here today not only for myself but for every God-fearing American that has worked and toiled to make this nation great and keep us free. The majority of the population in any state has the freedom to vote for laws, support laws and live under laws that they themselves decide by majority vote are right for their states and that they wish to abide by.
Oh that was Rapert, well shit.
Biddle America 