New video has surfaced of the Arkansas Republican state senator who sponsored the state's new abortion-ban bill making racially charged remarks about President Barack Obama at a 2011 Tea Party rally.State Sen. Jeffrey Rapart (R-Conway) told rally participants that they should not allow "minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in," The Nation reports.
A minute-and-a-half segment of the video surfaced on The Nation website a day after the Arkansas Senate passed legislation, sponsored by Rapart, that would ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Rapart did not respond to calls requesting comment.
In the video, Rapart criticizes Obama for inviting Muslim leaders to the White House for a Ramadan dinner and then not attending the National Prayer Breakfast. He questions "what [Obama] stands for" then directly criticizes Obama.
"I hear you loud and clear, Barack Obama," Rapart says. "You don't represent the country that I grew up with. And your values is not going to save us. We're going to take this country back for the Lord. We're going to try to take this country back for conservatism. And we're not going to allow minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in."
Rapart was first elected to the state Senate in 2010 and is one of the more conservative senators in the state. A financial planner, he helped organize an evangelical humanitarian group. The chairman of the Senate Insurance and Commerce Committee, Rapart is co-sponsoring legislation in the Senate that would allow people to carry guns into church services.
The report of Rapart's comments in 2011 follow a series of racially charged comments from Republicans in the state during the 2012 election season. Last year, then-state Reps. Jon Hubbard (R-Jonesboro) and Loy Mauch (R-Bismarck) came under fire for a series of past writings that endorsed slavery; Hubbard wrote a book published in 2010 that said slavery had been a "blessing" for blacks. Neither was reelected.
Republican state legislative candidate Charlie Fuqua was criticized for saying in a book released in 2012 that he wanted to deport all Muslims and that he endorsed the death penalty for rebellious children.
Original Article
Source: huffington post
Author: John Celock
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