COMMENTARY

Another step backward

State Sen. Jason Rapert has outed Gov. Asa Hutchinson, pulling him from the closet of gay discrimination.

It was bound to happen. A zealot will not long tolerate one who chronically finesses.

Our story starts near the end of the legislative session. Trouble raged over that bill to give people the statutory authority to cite their religion to discriminate against gay people.

Asa found himself in a bit of pickle.

His right-wing base, despising gays and clinging to an oddly mean version of supposed religion, wanted the bill. But Wal-Mart and more progressive out-of-state businesses — including some that Arkansas might hope to recruit — consider such laws backward or at least fatally offensive to emerging work forces and customer bases.

So Asa got out of the pickle with a little Houdini maneuver.

He said he would ask the Legislature to recall the bill and replace it with one identical to—or at least going no further than—federal law on religious rights.

It was a solution sounding more profound that it was. It simply kept the status quo in Arkansas, by which gays are not protected from discrimination by any state law. In fact, a pending new state law actually directs local governments not to enact any ordinances protecting gays from discrimination.

Asa hinted at the time that, failing recall and replacement of the measure by the Legislature, he might veto the bill. And he mentioned one other idea—an executive proclamation that he might issue to provide that, in the part of state government under his control, all employees would be treated fairly regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.

But the Legislature obliged him with a replacement bill. His office said the executive proclamation was on hold and that the governor might or might not act on it later.

So do you see what Asa had done there? He had preserved the status quo of discrimination against gays, thus pleasing his base. He had made it appear that he somehow had conceded something to the gays, though he hadn’t substantively. He held out the idea of an executive proclamation for fairness in state government employment, but signaled to right-wingers who want discrimination against gays that he wasn’t signing it and signaled to progressive-minded people that he still might.

So it came to pass Sunday night that I was watching television. Guitarist Joe Walsh was Daryl Hall’s guest on Live from Daryl’s House. Fine rock-based music was being performed. But, per usual, I was keeping watch on the phone for texts, emails and Twitter posts.

Then I got into a spat over Twitter with Rapert, as sometimes happens.

The religion grandstander tweeted that the IRS was threatening to deny free speech to preachers; I countered that the IRS was not threatening to deny free speech to anyone, but only presuming to say that a church was tax-exempt unless it engaged in electioneering. Rapert said the Episcopalians were doing politics by advancing homosexual rights, and I countered that the Episcopalians, to my knowledge, were not endorsing anybody for any office.

At one point in the exchange Rapert accused me of drinking. But I assured him I had not partaken in 24 hours.

Rapert tweeted that “any so-called clergy” that advocates same-sex marriage is an “apostate.” And he tweeted that same-sex advocates don’t want fairness, but forced affirmation, and that they demand that “we all bless them.”

That last item does not strike me as true. I am reasonably confident that the affirmation and blessing of Jason Rapert is the last or near-last thing a gay person seeks.

All of a sudden Rapert tweeted as follows: “Our governor advised me he would NOT be issuing a special executive order for homosexuals in Arkansas.”

That was news to me — news in general — and I replied to Rapert that I would need a credible source. He shot back, “Just putting you on notice so you aren’t pining for that which will not come. He gave his word.”

Thus Rapert made a major announcement that was not his to make — that Hutchinson will not issue any executive proclamation providing protections against discrimination to gays working for state government.

In other words, a smug bully invoked the governor — who was probably minding his own business at the time — to announce to the vast Twitter universe that the governor had made a private promise to a primitive, gay-baiting legislator not to protect state employees if mistreated on account of their sexual orientation.

If Rapert had managed to keep his mouth shut, or his texting fingers from moving, Asa could have proceeded blissfully in playing both sides against the middle.

Now Rapert has inserted Hutchinson on the vitriolic anti-gay side, at least until the governor comes forward to invalidate what Rapert announced. And that isn’t likely to happen. While Rapert lacks the discretion to keep such a thing to himself, he does possess the good sense not to lie on social media about what the governor told him.

Hutchinson is surely peeved at Rapert, but I suspect the governor is not even inclined to admit that—so sensitive is he to the forces of darkness Rapert represents.

Meantime the modern economy, one fueled by diversity, has become more distant for Arkansas.

That’s because we moved over the weekend from a place where the governor was pretending to be considering banning discrimination against gay state employees to a place where the governor reportedly vowed to a gay-basher that he won’t stop gay discrimination in state government.

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.

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