"By the way, Saudi Arabia, they don't live under the same kind of law that we do. They live under the law that they see fit to live under there. We have that right here, too. And that's why there's such an injustice here."--State Sen. Jason Rapert of Conway on a local radio talk show a week-and-a-half ago.
The Orval Faubus and Justice Jim Johnson of our time ended his infamous essay in this newspaper two weeks ago by saying he rested his case.
But Brother Jason Rapert didn't rest diddly. So I can't either.
He keeps talking.
I must keep explaining.
Grandstand players seldom rest their cases. Encores bring more cheers.
So Jason keeps coming back to center stage to perform another verse of "just as I am, without one plea, but that the gays may not marry."
A complication in resting his case is that Brother Rapert has none. So he needs to keep bellowing to fill the space where an argument might otherwise be.
And here is that nonexistent case of Jason's, to remind and summarize:
v The people rule in this country absolutely; whatever they say goes; constitutional principles don't matter, and blessed is the majority for it shall inherit the power. We are a nation of bigots, not of more admirable underlying principles, if, that is, bigots are what the people turn out by majority vote to be. That's just the way the old democracy ball bounces.
v Judges like Chris Piazza are bad, bad, bad for injecting constitutional standards like equal protection under the law ahead of what 75 percent of the voters of Arkansas said. And what those voters said is that they don't like the U.S. Constitution and equal treatment under the law if, that is, equal treatment is going to bestow hideous rights on those abominating gay people wanting to get married and thereby destroy the bliss of wedlock for the majority heterosexual people.
v None of that has anything to do with the voters of Arkansas choosing by majority in 1956 to keep schools racially segregated, which was ruled unconstitutional. Golly, gee whiz, shoot-fire, that's ... oh, you know, different. It's just different. Don't you see?
I don't. Nor do I see this argument that allowing the people of the same sex to marry each other means we'll inevitably be forced to allow people to marry multiple spouses or even their pets.
Let me explain: The issue is inequality of treatment under the law in a country committed by its constitution to equality.
No one is permitted under prevailing law to marry two or more spouses or his hound dog. Thus there is no inequality; everyone is equally stopped.
If the people of Arkansas passed a constitutional amendment saying brunettes could marry their chihuahuas but redheaded people couldn't, then a redheaded person with a deep affection for his chihuahua might have a case.
But as long as everyone alike is legally prohibited from marrying their beloved little yappers, then there's no problem in this great country.
Speaking of great countries, let's now turn our attention to Brother Rapert's seeming professed longing--in italics above--for some kind of likeness to Saudi Arabia.
Religious rule is working very well in stabilizing the Middle East, as you know.
I had missed this particular Rapertism. I was informed of it by the Huffington Post, which revealed it as expressed by Brother Rapert to a right-wing radio talk-show host in Little Rock.
Being a texting friend of Jason, I sent him a message to ask if he was calling for a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in America.
He replied: "No sir--not hardly. I was discussing your favorite topic--consent of the governed and the will of the people ... . I was making the point you have heard me make several times--people have a right to pass laws that reflect their values in a representative democracy."
So what I think I'll do at this point is simply relate the ensuing conversation:
Me: "Well, I pretty well explained all this Sunday. You and your people can try to get super-majorities in Congress and of state legislatures to amend out the establishment clause and free religion and equal treatment under the law. Then you can impose your religious view of marriage on civil law against these dad-blamed minorities running roughshod. I wish you bad luck with that."
Rapert: "I would never dream of doing what you suggest. Get some sleep, John."
Me: "It's the only way to be unequal in this country."
Rapert: "By the way, thanks for being mean to me in your column. Everyone you brag on gets their tail whipped these days. You spell my opponent's name Joel 'Tyler' Pearson."
Me: "Evil has a history of electoral flourishes in our state."
I rest my case, so long as he'll rest his absence of one.
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John Brummett's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 06/15/2014