Why I Love Kansas

Happy Kansas Day, everyone! Today marks the 163rd year that our beloved state joined the United States as the 34th state. As I was thinking about what to write about for today, my mind went back to last week when Tatiana Bergum spoke at the 2024 March and Rally for Life. When she spoke, she made mention of driving through Kansas twice and sensing a “unique spiritual atmosphere.” She said she prayed on it and found that it was clear that God has His hand on Kansas.

Interestingly, this is not the first time I’ve heard someone who visited this great state say something about God looking over this land. Kansas is a special place and people who visit seem to pick up on that.

While I typically don’t get religious in my articles, I do want to share some of my beliefs and I feel it is even necessary to get my point across as to why I love Kansas.

To do a little Bible study, I want to look at 2 Corinthians 3:17

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

Freedom is holy. I don’t believe most people like freedom or want freedom and I think the reality of that was accentuated during 2020. I think freedom is something that scares people. Yet, God has given us freewill—giving us the choice to live freely or live fearfully, to be ruled by Him or to be ruled by others.

I make a point to say all of this because when Kansas became a state, freedom was at the heart of its creation.

Though it took four tries, the Kansas Constitution would eventually be created. This constitution took huge steps for both racial and gender equality. Not only did it prohibit slavery but Democrats also failed to create a provision that would prevent free Blacks from migrating to the new state. Furthermore, Clarina Nichols, a women’s rights activist, reformer, and journalist, had many of her ideas expressed in the constitution—granting women property rights, equal custody of their children, and the right to vote in school board elections.

On top of this, Kansas was where the Civil War began in the small town of Lecompton, and where slavery would begin to see an end for the country.

Kansas was given the nickname, the ‘Free State,’ and as time went on, this continued to be true with other landmark decisions.

In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, going down in history as a landmark civil rights case.

In 2014, another huge decision for freedom was granted for another group of people as U.S. district judge Crabtree issued a preliminary injunction and struck down the state’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples nearly seven months before marriage equality was granted across the country by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 2015.

Kansas has recently been ranked as the 25th freest state in the country, and I think, like anywhere else, Kansas is going to stay in a constant battle for freedom. One of the biggest reasons I started The Kansas Constitutional was to help educate others on policies in Kansas and to bring a freedom-focused media outlet to the state’s political discourse. I think it is important for others to understand that government cannot give people freedom, it can only take it away. Therefore, when it comes to growing the government bigger and taking people’s rights away, I’m going to oppose it. Freedom for all means a government that’s small. And hopefully, one day, Kansas can be ranked as the freest state in the country, as I know it can be.

I love Kansas for the progress it has made not just for the people of the state, but for the entire country. I feel privileged that I get to live here and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. This is a wonderful state to live in, and I’m excited to see the future progress this state makes for freedom for all who choose to call this place home.