We once again called down God’s grace to sanctify this evil day in Kansas history. Participants traveled from outside the Topeka area to join locals in prayer for the people and government of our state. The event was very peaceful, and we were blessed with good weather after the storms.
We should be grateful to the framers of our 1859 Wyandotte constitution for acknowledging “Almighty God” in the first line of the Preamble, and for then proclaiming a “natural right[]” to “life” in the first substantive provision, Section 1 of the Bill of Rights. The delegate at Wyandotte who proposed the language of Section 1, Samuel A. Kingman, linked it to the Declaration of Independence, which similarly acknowledges God and sets out rights we receive (via our nature) from Him. The Declaration of Independence first refers to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” and then states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” After Kingman argued this “Declaration of Rights forms a part of our political creed, from which no man can extricate himself,” the delegates overwhelmingly voted to adopt. On April 26, 2019, however, the Kansas Supreme Court attempted to extricate itself from that creed, and many have willingly followed. We shall continue praying that the Supreme Court, together with all the government and people of Kansas, willingly return.