Top Tea Partier Exposed As Ex-Pothead But God-Forgiven Sinner Who Joked About Rape

GOP Texas State Rep. Jonathan Stickland Lied About Past Drug Use, Reportedly Made Rape “Joke”

A prominent Texas tea party state lawmaker is also a former marijuana smoker who’s lied about his past drug use and who once said, though perhaps jokingly, that men should be allowed to rape their wives.

State Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, made the comments in online forums before he was elected in 2012 to the Texas House, where he’s become the state’s most visible tea party lawmaker. 

Stickland’s online posts were made public by the campaign of his challenger in the March Republican Primary, Scott Fisher, who provided them to The Quorum Report.  

“Was wondering if anyone lived in the Dallas Fort Worth area and loved to smoke the green,” Stickland wrote on Marijuana.com in 2001. “Looking for a smoke buddy.” 

The following year, Stickland wrote that he was interested in growing his own pot but was “totally clueless on what to do.” 

“I think the best thing I need to do right now is find someone (prefferably [SIC] local) with experience to help guide me,” Stickland wrote. “ANYONE who can help me out I would be truly grateful.”

In a statement Monday, Stickland admitted to making the posts and to smoking marijuana. 

“Anyone who knows my testimony, my family, friends, and many supporters, are [sic] aware that I smoked marijuana in high school and my early collegiate years,” Stickland said. “Let me even go a step further and say that during that time I wasted much of life, said and did things I wish I hadn’t. But by the Grace of God my past sins are forgiven.”

“Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and I have all smoked marijuana. I never grew marijuana,” he added. “But I hope and pray that my daughters never make the mistake I made, and that, if they do fail, they know of the forgiveness readily available.”

Fisher’s campaign later released posts from 2008 in which Stickland apparently sought advice about how to beat a drug test at work, saying he’d recently taken “a few glorious rips from a blunt.” Those posts appear to show that Stickland lied when he said he only smoked marijuana “in high school and my early collegiate years.”

Stickland, now 32, dropped out of high school after his junior year, then attended community college before going to work in the pest control business, which explains his use of screen names like “RaTmasTeR4LiFe” and “RaTTyTheLegend.” 

Stickland is a self-proclaimed Libertarian who supports ticketing rather than jailing people caught with small amounts of marijuana. However, he also supports requiring people to undergo drug tests to qualify for unemployment benefits. 

In 2012, Stickland’s primary challenger unearthed online posts in which the incumbent endorsed same-sex marriage, backed union rights and bashed both Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Stickland never admitted to making those posts, and he now claims to oppose same-sex marriage. 

“The family is the foundation of every society and I believe it is under attack,” his website states. “I believe marriage is between a man, a woman and God. These are fundamental principles and are essential in maintaining strong families in our state.”

Stickland recently bragged that he’d received an “F-” on LGBT issues on a scorecard from Equality Texas. 

Needless to say, we liked Stickland much better when he was a web-trolling, pot-smoking gay rights supporter, and when he had the courage of his Libertarian convictions. Unfortunately, he’s since revealed himself to be just another spineless, pandering, dishonest, hypocritical Texas Republican.

But even more troubling than any of that is something Stickland allegedly posted in an online forum in 2008, according to Scott Braddock of The Quorum Report:

“Rape is non existent in marriage, take what you want my friend!”

 

Image of Stickland via Twitter
Hat tip: Austin Statesman