Stanley Jason Rapert (born April 3, 1972) is an American
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...
from the state of
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
, who served as a member of the
Arkansas State Senate
The Arkansas State Senate is the upper branch of the Arkansas General Assembly. The Senate consists of 35 members, each representing a district with about 83,000 people. Service in the state legislature is part-time, and many state senators have ...
from 2011 to 2023 and represented the 35th district.
Political career
Rapert was elected in 2010 to the
Arkansas State Senate
The Arkansas State Senate is the upper branch of the Arkansas General Assembly. The Senate consists of 35 members, each representing a district with about 83,000 people. Service in the state legislature is part-time, and many state senators have ...
, representing the 18th district. As a result of decennial
redistricting, he sought reelection in the 35th district in 2012, when he defeated
Democrat
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
Linda Tyler. In the general election held on November 4, 2014, Rapert won a four-year term in the state Senate by defeating Democrat Joel Pearson, 13,483 votes to 10,267.
Reproductive rights
Rapert supports banning abortion even for victims of rape and incest, as well as banning exceptions for the health of the mother.
Rapert authored a bill to ban all abortions in Arkansas after twelve weeks of
pregnancy
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops (gestation, gestates) inside a woman, woman's uterus (womb). A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.
Pregnancy usually occur ...
. Then-Governor
Mike Beebe
Mickey Dale Beebe ( ; born December 28, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 45th governor of Arkansas from 2007 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Born in Amagon, Arkansas, Beebe is a graduate of Arkan ...
(D) vetoed the bill as unconstitutional, but "the Republican-led Legislature overrode his veto." In 2013, a federal judge stopped the law from being implemented, saying it was likely unconstitutional. In January 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the State's petition for a
writ of certiorari
In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...
to review the case. The State of Arkansas was ordered to pay over $97,000 in attorneys' fees and costs to the prevailing plaintiffs before the Supreme Court decision was finalized.
Minorities
At a 2011
Tea Party
A tea party is a social gathering event held in the afternoon. For centuries, many societies have cherished drinking tea with a company at noon. Tea parties are considered for formal business meetings, social celebrations or just as an afternoon ...
rally, Rapert said, "we're not going to allow minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in". Rapert later claimed that his remarks about minorities were taken out of context. The "minority" comments Rapert made in 2011 referenced both
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
and a ballot initiative (
Arkansas Proposed Initiative Act No. 1 (2008)) stricken as unconstitutional that prohibited unmarried cohabitating couples from adopting.
The Arkansas act had been criticized for prohibiting gay couples from adopting.
On June 30, 2015, the Jason Rapert for Arkansas Senate
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
page announced, in response to a post suggesting that the rights of minorities are not subject to majority wishes, that "we the majority grant you rights by choice."
Later on that same day, the Facebook page accused Max Brantley and the ''Arkansas Times'' as a whole, of reporting that Rapert does not "recognize
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
has endowed us with natural rights that are given by God that no man can take away."
[
]
LGBT issues
While running for the Arkansas General Assembly, Rapert stated: "Traditional marriage in our society has always been between one man and one woman. I support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that protects that right now and forevermore." As a member of the Arkansas Legislative Council, a powerful committee in the Arkansas General Assembly, Rapert proposed a non-binding resolution to "urge the Arkansas Supreme Court to overturn a circuit judge’s ruling striking down Arkansas’ same-sex marriage ban." Rapert initially proposed impeaching the judge who issued the ruling, but later stated he wanted to establish a system of judicial recall.
On June 7, 2015, Rapert took to Facebook to "urge everyone to contact the Conway City Council and Mayor Tab Townsell in opposition to allowing activists to march through the streets of Conway on a Sunday to mock Christian values and accuse Christians of being bigots", in protest of the Conway Gay Pride Parade that was scheduled to take place later that same day, which he deemed an anti-Christian activity. According to ''The Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'', responses to the Facebook post were "largely mocking".
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges
''Obergefell v. Hodges'', ( ), is a landmark LGBT rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protect ...
that legalized gay marriage, Rapert claimed that the Court's ruling was unconstitutional. Rapert encouraged public officials "to refuse to comply with an unjust ruling that violates religious freedom and states rights".
In 2017, Rapert took to Facebook and compared LGBT people to Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
stating: "The LGBT activists who behave as Nazis are trying to ruin anyone who ‘disagrees’ with them – even grandmothers. Simply believing in the Bible is offensive to these activists. They can’t stand it if you disagree. They demand full compliance with their diminished morality. They clearly behave just like the ‘brown shirts’ and ‘SS’ troops that Nazis used to destroy Jews and anyone who disagreed with the Nazi ideology."
In January 2020, Rapert suggested cutting funding for PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
and AETN for the appearance of gay actor Billy Porter on Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...
by stating: "I can pass a bill to cutoff all funding for the rebroadcast of PBS programming through AETN and also stop all funding for AETN altogether if necessary". A Facebook commentor asked "if Jesus would approve of your judgment and intolerance?" To which he replied: "You are totally amiss and you know it. Christians do not support anti-Biblical behavior. The Bible is clear on certain sins — including homosexuality. Romans Chapter 1 and the Book of Jude just to cite two examples are very clear about this issue. Jesus never endorsed homosexual behavior and opposed it as he referenced Sodom and Gomorrah. Speaking the truth is not hatred. If you oppose the Bible, you are not a sincere Christian."
In February 2023, Rapert said on an episode of Save The Nation that the Christians must take authority over the drag queens running this place, by stating that: "We must take authority, God told us to go out there and be fruitful, multiply, fill the Earth, subdue it, and have dominion over everything. Friends, the reason the country is struggling because the Christians in America have failed to take authority and now is the time to choose, now is the time to stand."
Medical marijuana
In November 2016, Arkansas became the first state in the Bible Belt
The Bible Belt is a region of the Southern United States in which socially conservative Protestant Christianity plays a strong role in society and politics, and church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's a ...
to legalize medical marijuana
Medical cannabis, or medical marijuana (MMJ), is cannabis and cannabinoids that are prescribed by physicians for their patients. The use of cannabis as medicine has not been rigorously tested due to production and governmental restrictions ...
, passing by nearly 70,000 votes. Rapert publicly opposed the ballot, and both introduced legislation to ban the consumption of medical marijuana in smoking form, and sponsored legislation to delay the program as long as federal laws banning marijuana remain on the books. When pointed out to him during an interview that it can easily be considered hypocrisy that he would oppose medical marijuana in favor of federal law, while opposing marriage equality
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
''in spite'' of federal law, he responded with "Watch your language with me or we'll stop the interview".
Ten Commandments monuments
Rapert has pushed for the installation of the privately funded Ten Commandments Monument Ten Commandments Monument may refer to:
North America
* Ten Commandments Monument (Austin, Texas)
* Ten Commandments Monument (Little Rock, Arkansas)
* Ten Commandments Monument (Oklahoma City)
* Ten Commandments Memorial, Phoenix, Arizona, locate ...
on the Arkansas state capitol grounds. Rapert sponsored a bill in 2015 which would require the secretary of state to allow for the installation of the monument. The monument was challenged by the ACLU as being a violation of clauses in both the federal and state constitutions prohibiting the government from favoring any religion. The first version of the monument was installed in 2017, and was destroyed less than 24 hours later.
Legal challenges were suspended until a replacement monument could be installed. The new version, with protective concrete bollards, was unveiled April 27, 2018. The monument was again challenged by the ACLU, the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, and The Satanic Temple
The Satanic Temple, often abbreviated TST, is a nontheistic religious organization that is primarily based in the United States, with additional congregations in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Co-founded by Lucien Greaves, the or ...
. The Satanic Temple had successfully challenged a similar monument in Oklahoma in 2015, and in both locations has offered to install a bronze monument to Baphomet as a symbol of religious pluralism and freedom.
U.S. military power
In February 2015, Rapert stated that the United States should use nuclear weapons in response to the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...
. The post sparked a "lively debate...rang ngfrom agreement to ridicule" on social media: ''Wonkette
''Wonkette'' is an American online magazine of topical and political gossip, established in 2004 by Gawker Media and founding editor Ana Marie Cox. The editor since 2012 is Rebecca Schoenkopf, formerly of ''OC Weekly''. ''Wonkette'' covers U.S. ...
'' replied sarcastically to this stance, as did ''Daily Kos
Daily Kos ( ) is a group blog and internet forum focused on the U.S. Democratic Party and liberal American politics. The site includes glossaries and other content. It is sometimes considered an example of " netroots" activism.
Daily Kos was ...
'', and '' Esquire''.
Social media
In early September 2015, after having been approached by a local constituent at a store, Rapert posted a tweet that read, "Not smart to come up and harass somebody in a parking lot who's carrying a handgun. Better be glad you decided to walk away #armed&ready", which became the center of a controversy on social media.[Jordan Bontke for KATV. September 10, 201]
Senator Rapert explains controversial gun tweet
Rapert said that the tweet was not referring to the incident with that constituent. On October 2, 2018, the group American Atheists filed a lawsuit against Rapert, claiming he violated constituents' First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by blocking them on social media platforms and stifling debate.
In February 2019, the sludge metal band Eyehategod
Eyehategod (also abbreviated and referred to as EHG) is an American sludge metal band from New Orleans, Louisiana who formed in 1988. They have become one of the better known bands to emerge from the NOLA metal scene. Their core lineup has r ...
posted a Facebook event for a show booked in Little Rock that used a picture of Rapert eating a baby, and Rapert spoke out, calling for a protest of the venue and the band, saying "I call on Vinos in Little Rock to cancel this event and apologize for such a disrespectful image that shows the dehumanization of babies lives. It is disrespectful of all who value babies lives and people of faith" and urged the band to find the "love, grace and mercy of God and choose to update their name to 'EyeloveGod'" in a later update to his post.
Personal life
Rapert was raised near the rural
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...
community of Supply on a small family farm. He attended school in Maynard in Randolph County Randolph County is the name of eight counties in the United States:
*Randolph County, Alabama
*Randolph County, Arkansas
*Randolph County, Georgia
*Randolph County, Illinois
*Randolph County, Indiana
*Randolph County, Missouri
*Randolph County, Nort ...
and was active in basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
and academics.
In 1990, Rapert married Laurie Ellen Tyler of Pocahontas
Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, known as Matoaka, 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman, belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of ...
in
Randolph County and a member of the Jarrett Tribe Family. The couple moved to Conway, where they both attended the University of Central Arkansas
The University of Central Arkansas (Central Arkansas or UCA) is a public university in Conway, Arkansas. Founded in 1907 as the Arkansas State Normal School, the university is one of the oldest in the U.S. state of Arkansas. As the state's only ...
, where he majored in Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
and Sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
. He worked for United Parcel Service
United Parcel Service (UPS, stylized as ups) is an American multinational shipping & receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has grown t ...
while attending college.
Rapert and his wife have two daughters. He plays the fiddle, which he learned by ear when he was ten years old.
Rapert is the founder and president of Holy Ghost Ministries, and he makes annual missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
visits to Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
.[
On July 23, 2020, Rapert was hospitalized with pneumonia due to ]COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
.
Rapert is a member of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share model legislation for distribution among state governments in the United State ...
(ALEC), the Gideons International
Gideons International is an Evangelical Christian association for men founded in 1899 in Janesville, Wisconsin. The Gideons' primary activity, along with their wives in the Auxiliary, is "encouraging each other to do the work of the Lord, focusin ...
, and Rotary International.
References
External links
Official page
at the Arkansas General Assembly website
Campaign site
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rapert, Jason
1972 births
Living people
Republican Party Arkansas state senators
American Christians
Place of birth missing (living people)
University of Central Arkansas alumni
People from Randolph County, Arkansas
People from Perry County, Arkansas
21st-century American legislators