Almost everyone we have met and discussed our route plans with have scoffed rudely about Kansas. “There’s just nothing”, “it’s so boring”, “oh I’m sorry you have to go through there” where the sorts of comments we heard. So understandably our expectations were low for this large state. That said, we have an interest in farming and farm equipment so were still keen to see the scales and methods which we couldn’t imagine coming from small scale Cornwall.
Well I honestly don’t know where it has got it’s reputations for ugliness from. It was green and hilly and really quite pretty with spectacular sky overhead. Or at least it would have been pretty had we not have been bombarded every few hundred years with the most offensive, crude and outright cruel billboards depicting picture of foetus’s and dire warning against the murder of abortion. Images of beating hearts and utter nonsense about tiny bundles of cells being able to smile are rammed down throat. Holy crap guys… What is with this place? Why are people so caught up in other people’s business in completely the wrong way?
The “marriage is between one man and one woman” and other anti-gay propaganda was the final straw and we cranked up the cruse control a couple of notches to get the hell out of this offensive, attempted brainwashing bullshit. I thought America was meant to be the land of the free and yet the people here are shackled by chains to a ridiculous religion based on nonsense images of a white “Jesus” walking in corn fields! You can’t escape it anywhere. We drove through a village with a population of 502 people… One street had 5 churches all next to each other.
And throughout the entire state of Kansas, despite the impressive attempt to brain wash us into an extremist religion there was not a single billboard addressing domestic violence or child abuse… Oh I forgot, they’re okay in the bible. Like almost anything you want to do you can interpret the bible to make it okay. Including selling your daughters, beating your children with an iron rod and taking an eye for an eye.
But should you be so sick that you have no choice but to make the awful decision to terminate your desperately wanted baby or you don’t want to bring into the world a baby produced through rape, an abusive relationship or simply by accident then let’s hope you don’t live in Kansas or you’ll be reminded 30 times a day that “Stop Drop and Roll don’t work in Hell!”
Oh and between the billboards you know what they have… Adult stores selling pornography!!!
If the real life Jesus that lived 2,000 years ago could see the puke inducing display of hatred and intolerance that his message had been bastardised into now he would be ashamed and probably terrified!
Adventures of Muma Dean 
So sorry to hear how awful it was!! I’m reading a fascinating (if challenging!) book right now called “The Case for God”… it is fascinating because it explains how it is a very modern idea to believe that religious texts should be taken as “gospel” (as in literal and true) and how the inconsistencies exist because the people who wrote and edited it didn’t see a problem with inconsistencies because it was all about trying to make sense of life, which no-one can fully understand, not trying to pin down who or what “God” was. They would have even seen the modern idea of God as an “idol”. I’m not doing it justice, there’s so much in the book and I am only halfway through, but what I mean is it makes me so sad that we’ve found ourselves in a time when people are told (even forced) to believe a certain concept rather than being encouraged to explore and make their own decisions. I can’t imagine it being so in your face as you describe, it sounds terrifying. And as you say, totally the opposite of the “unconditional love” it’s supposed to be proclaiming. I thought the Bible taught that Jesus went out there and helped those in need, those who were scorned by everyone else… how does that translate to beating women when they are down? As if making such a heart-rending decisions isn’t hard enough, right?
Exactly Amanda. Christianity is meant to be about love and acceptance and helping others. But it’s been utterly warped here and now seems to be about extremist views and cult like conversion. Obviously not everywhere and everyone but in a lot of the states for sure. The sheer number of churches here is actually quite scary! The country seems to be crippled by their extremist churches.
Oh my goodness, I’m not surprised you high tailed it out of there! That is extremism to be sure. How can a community raise children to be tolerant and understanding with such one eyed, judgmental views? It’s so sad to think of all the inevitable young women who would feel isolated from their community when their choices are so publicly shamed.
Yeah and the young men and women who will be ejected from their families because they were born gay! Bet the suicide rate in the state is high!
It’s truly awful. We are having similar discussions in Australia at the moment about whether Freedom of Speech includes the right to be a bigot. It’s a shakey argument at best, morally there’s never an excuse to speak in a way that’s exclusive rather than inclusive I think.
Indeed but it’s a tricky argument as you say. I also believe that freedom of religion should include freedom from religion but it’s very hard to achieve in practice.