Come On, You're Better Than This

Note: Since the note-taking and thought formulation of this post, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed SB 975 which mirrors the RFRA that President Bill Clinton passed back in 1993. This post concerns my opinions of HB 1228 – which could potentially have legalized discrimination. The lessons we Arkansans should pick up are twinfold:  1) be wary of the people you elect in November; and 2) the citizenry still has a voice contrary to what a few xenophobes/homophobes may think.

Come on, you’re better than this.

HB 1228 is a noted byproduct of what happens when people vote against their interests and allow the least qualified among us to make laws. Without a shadow of doubt race is involved in Arkansas’ hatred of anything President Obama touches or comments on (see PPACA when the Heritage Foundation supported it during the Bush years and is so vehemently against now, and when he empathized with the late Trayvon Martin’s family), our band of xenophobic Republicans from that northwest corner has pivoted from hating African-Americans loudly to now becoming homophobes, bashing LGBTQ members. When will you legislate against obesity, Mr. Ballinger? That will likely be the day after Mr. Harris does hard time for treating the most vulnerable – children – as dogs that can be re-homed at will and Mr. Rapert attends a NAACP meeting.

Guess who I blame for the shenanigans in the Capitol? Us. The Arkansas voter.

Arkansas Legislature approved and encouraged #BoycottArkansas pic.twitter.com/Q7v2RUrz6E
— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) April 2, 2015

By allowing HB 1228 to become law, Gov. Hutchinson will potentially be linked forever to former Gov. Orval Faubus regardless of how lukewarm his public face shows. Have you noticed that no other state officeholder has come out for or against the bill publicly? Yes, I’m looking at Tim Griffin, Leslie Rutledge, Mark Martin, Mr. Milligan, and the others who won their elections way back on November 4. Silent voices are complicit voices. There was a time not that long ago when my own relatives blatantly experienced ostracism solely for being black – heck, almost everyone black has a similar story. I can go on about how my wife and I have been treated in some restaurants around town or the shock others have shown when I tell them of my professional background and experiences. What, brothers cannot work as contract technical writers? Surprise!

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 lends a religious viewpoint that our Pharisees in government so conveniently forget. Thank the Apostle Paul for the following words in the King James Version:

9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of the world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then ye needs go out of the world.

11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

12 For what I have to do to judge them that are also without? Do not ye judge them that are within?

13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

While Scripture has been used to justify some sins (which some white people have used Colossians 3:23 to defend slavery, and later segregation), we in the Bible Belt often forget that God is anti-divorce as well. So…if you’re judging someone based on a lifestyle preference, skin color, etc., do us all a favor and take that plank from your eye. If gay people make a mockery of marriage, then what about the people who have married more than twice? Again, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?

Of all the harebrained schemes the state Legislature has worked through this session, this bill takes the cake. In 2015, I think it is past time for the hijinks from the local, state, and federal levels. The willful ignorance of some politicians and covert dumbing-down of our populace has to stop. Arkansas has the opportunity to advance in time – something that didn’t happen fifty-eight years ago at Central High School; when Wal-Mart put the brakes on bad legislation, then you definitely have a problem.

Come on, Arkansas. We’re better than this.