The rich cultural history of Missouri was home to slavery - as well as books about it, hearings, trials, and persecution.


Source: http://www.ozarkscivilwar.org/
This is a significant part of the cultural heritage, but it is often remembered with sorrow rather than a joyous embrace.
As slavery came to an end, another battle brewed in Missouri.  Like all states in the union, in those quaint times that Pogue likes to remember when he thinks of the 1820, women couldn't vote.
One of the most important cases for suffrage occurred in St. Louis Courthouse, as Virginia Minor began her long fight for the right of women to vote.  Now, admittedly, she was born after the 1820 time period Pogue harkens to, March 27, 1824 actually - a nice day for women's history upcoming - but her importance in Missouri history is certainly assured.  In 1867, she founded Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri, predating the National Suffrage Association which would later be founded by Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
In Minor V. Happersett, 1874, Virginia Minor asserted that women had the right to vote, and that barring them from full franchise.  When she tried to register on October 15, 1872 she was turned away by Happersett, a district registrar, who refused to accept her application.
In the 1874 ruling, the chief justice of the Missouri Court, Morrison R. Waite, suggested that: "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone".  This argument remained for decades until Missouri allowed the right to vote in a presidential election in 1919, shortly before the right of suffrage was granted.
I bring these issues up for Representative Pogue not to mock him, but to encourage him to remember the history of his state, which includes change.   Acknowledging that ideas you valued hundreds of years ago can change over time, that society adapts.
Kyle Piccola, lobbyist for PROMO, called Pogue’s legislation “disheartening.” PROMO advocates for gay and transgender rights.
“They’re attacks on the transgender community,” Piccola said. “Everybody, including the transgender community, cares about privacy and safety, particularly in the bathroom.”
Piccola said bills filed this late in the session “don’t typically go anywhere,” but PROMO will be monitoring the bills and creating an advocacy plan if that changes.
It is unlikely these bills move to the floor.  This should still be a learning moment for many, who like to think about days gone by, the distance past and remember it as better times and call for a return to them.   We have to remember that the past wasn't a utopia for all.  And the farther back we go, the less inviting it is for a great number of people.
Rep. Pogue should remember the Missouri state motto:  Salus populi suprema lex esto.   Let the good of the people be the supreme law.