Like its subject, Ken Ham’s Ark Park (“Ark Encounter”)—a project of his creationist organization Answers in Genesis—has had a tumultuous ride. First it had trouble getting financial support from backers (something that seems to have reversed after Bill Nye’s ill-advised debate with Ham), then went back and forth about whether it would get tax breaks (that came to nothing) and then finally seemed poised to get those take breaks from the state of Kentucky. It looked like the damn thing would be built after all, and with government support of a palpably religious project. It would be a theme park designed to purvey lies to children.
But, to my surprise, the state of Kentucky finally came to its senses, realizing that it’s a violation of the First Amendment to give tax breaks to such a project. (It’s similar to the illegal practice of the U.S. government giving ministers tax breaks on their housing allowances.) As the Louisville Courier-Journal reports (complete with a superfluous apostrophe):
A proposed Noah’s ark theme park in Northern Kentucky has been turned down for around $18 million in state tax incentives amid concerns that it will promote religion and violate the separation of church and state.
But the group behind the project — Answers in Genesis — says it is considering legal action in federal court.
The state Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet said in a letter Wednesday that the Ark Encounter theme park has changed it’s [sic; doesn’t the paper have a proofreader?] position on hiring policies since it originally filed for incentives in 2010 and now intends to discriminate in hiring based on religion.
It also said the park has evolved from a tourist attraction into an extension of the ministry activities undertaken by Answers in Genesis, which promotes a literal interpretation of the Bible’s old testament and argues that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
“State tourism tax incentives cannot be used to fund religious indoctrination or otherwise be used to advance religion,” Tourism Secretary Bob Stewart wrote in the letter. “The use of state incentives in this way violates the separation of church and state provisions of the Constitution and is therefore impermissible.”
DUH! Didn’t they realize that in the first place? It didn’t “evolve” from anything; that was the park’s purpose from the outset. After all, AIG’s Creation Museum in Kentucky is the same thing: an extension of ministry activities promoting a Biblical view of creation. Were state tourism tax incentives used for that, too? If so, that was just as illegal as the Ark Park.
And Answers in Genesis (AIG) isn’t making it any easier on themselves with a statement put up just yesterday on the Ark Encounter blog, which, after discussing the possibility that the remains of the Ark might still rest on Turkey’s Mount Ararat (at least they have the decency to say the evidence is “not conclusive”), AIG adds (my emphasis):
Nevertheless, the Ark Encounter will show the feasibility of this famous vessel, and we will use the biblical account of Noah, the Ark, and the Flood to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
How much clearer can that be, O citizens of Kentucky?
The Lexington Herald-Leader quotes further from Stewart’s letter:
In a letter dated Dec. 10, Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet Secretary Bob Stewart told a lawyer for Answers in Genesis that the state could not support projects with hiring practices that discriminated based on religion.
“As you know … we have strongly supported this project, believing it to be a tourism attraction based on biblical themes that would create significant jobs for the community,” Stewart wrote to James Parsons, a Covington attorney. “However … it is readily apparent that the project has evolved from a tourist attraction to an extension of AIG’s ministry that will no longer permit the commonwealth to grant the project tourism development incentives.”
Stewart was responding to a Dec. 8 letter from Parsons that threatened a lawsuit if state officials imposed hiring conditions, which AIG officials contend were added late in the process.
What might have made the difference was a secularist organization pointing out that the Ark Encounter intended to proceed with preferential hiring based on religion:
The current problems started during the summer, when the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority gave preliminary approval to an incentive package which allows a 25 percent sales tax rebate for approved tourism sites.
But state officials paused after Americans for the Separation of Church and State pointed out language in job postings for the park requiring “salvation testimony” and a “Creation belief statement.”
State officials agreed that the language would violate state rules that prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion.
A series of meetings and letters followed, including Parsons’ lengthy letter threatening a federal lawsuit because of “unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.”
It seems to me that whether or not hiring was based on religious belief, the project itself violates the First Amendment because the government was giving a tax advantage not just to religion (as it does with ministers’ housing exemptions), but to the promotion of Christianity. And that violates the Constitution.
What surprised me even more was that the governor of Kentucky backed his cabinet secretary by issuing a statement, and he didn’t have to do that. The statement, below, will surely anger the many religionists that populate that state—the only state where posters for my evolution talks were defaced and removed. But the governor of course qualified his statement with a quasi-endorsement of the park:
Gov. Steve Beshear said he supported Stewart’s decision.
“We expect any entity that accepts state incentives not to discriminate on any basis in hiring,” Beshear said in a statement. “While the leaders of Ark Encounter had previously agreed not to discriminate in hiring based on religion, they now refuse to make that commitment, and it has become apparent that they do intend to use religious beliefs as a litmus test for hiring decisions. For that reason, we cannot proceed with the tourism incentive application for the Ark Encounter project.”
Beshear said he thought the project would move ahead.
“Ark Encounter has said publicly that the project will be built regardless of availability of state incentives,” Beshear said. “I have no doubt that the Ark Encounter will be a successful attraction, drawing visitors and creating jobs, much like the Creation Museum.”
I would have thought Noah had a pair of cranes!
Ha! Good one!
Or is it seven pairs? I always get confused with the two versions of the myth in Genesis.
Depends on whether they are “clean” …
Yet “clean” didn’t turn up in the bible till leviticus? Talk about spoilers!
My grandfather in his “interesting” humor modus operandi used to “advise” me that I should flee from (the wiles of beguiling, seductive) women, shouting, “Unclean! Unclean!”
I believe cranes would fall into the “stork and heron kind” unclean according to Lev. 11:19
If there’s a ‘stork and heron kind’, how are there so many kinds of storks and herons now?
Evolu- …
Hey, wait a minute…
Or just seven?
/@
6000 years ago they only had skyhooks.
I was wondering how long before someone brought in the skyhooks! 😉
That thing in the illustration looks like a fairly mediaeval crane. Noah could have built one like that with beams, pulleys and ropes. ??? and slaves turning the crank???
It wouldn’t have required any more sophisticated engineering than a ballista or a trebuchet. So any technology capable of building a reasonable sized sailing boat could have built a crane.
The Ark, on the other hand, would likely have been grossly oversized and understrength, I’d expect it to come to pieces in the mildest of seas…
Before anyone nitpicks, the ballista and trebuchet were I think Roman-era weapons. I made a bit of a jump of period (and logic) there. But any sailing ship capable of carrying sails incorporates the necessary knowledge about stays and struts to build a crane, i think.
Not trebuchets, or at least, not trebuchets that use a counter weight.
Ancient Greeks used such a system in plays for their deus ex machina, which would be perfect in the context of Noah’s Ark.
Phew! There is hope for Kentucky yet.
…at least when there is a blue moon!
😉
I hope they spend every dime of what they’ve already bilked out of the gullible on fighting this, clear up to a defeat at the hands of the Supreme Court!
Shine on the one that’s gone, and proved untrue
As the song says, “Keep on risin'”!
Kentucky fried Ham.
Who’da thunk it?
The ox is slow, but the earth is patient.
I’m pretty sure that Ark Encounter will still be built
I’ll take the other view. They have no intention of actually building the damn thing. They’ll just continue dragging on, pleading their wounds like this latest to raise more $ while skimming off management fees, until at some point they abscond with the till.
You might be right about that one. I had the same though. But even in the case that it is being built. I have a hard time imagining that the project would ever break even. I have a strong suspicion that people who invest in this project are never going to see their money again.
How did Noah come up with $29.5 million when he built an ark? He managed to build it and fight of Ray Winstone.
Hang on a sec…I just did the math and if adjusted for 2% annual inflation and 6,000 years it effectively cost him nothing. 7.3925018941019E-45 to be exact…
Altarian dollars?
http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Universe
All Noah had to do was invest that amount then & The Ham (Shem/Japheth) ark would have achieved its goal!
I meany Altairian…
I was thinking of affording a meal in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe…
“the restaurant’s bill can be paid by depositing a penny in any bank account of the present time: by the end of the universe, the compound interest on that penny over the course of time after 170 quintillion years (short scale) will be enough to pay the extremely high bill.”
(same website)
Well, he had lots of help from the Fallen Angels. Nice to have super strong, untiring workers that don’t need food, nor sleep, or pay.
That sure was a strange movie, but I kind of liked it.
Junk bonds. Easy peasy when you now all your creditors are going to be stone dead in a few years’ time.
now => know.
Wait a minute… those junk bonds… does Ken Ham know something we don’t?
Well it took Noah about a hundred years to get his built didn’t it? (Or am I mixed up with another myth?) Surely Ham doesn’t think he’s better than Noah?
Cold stone stupid is the only description I can think of and maybe a movie will be made about their long story of building a boat. Maybe Russel Crowe could play a part. It should be called, Only In Kentucky.
If only that were true.
“LOL! Noah didn’t have a crane!”
Sure he did! Here’s a picture.
Funny.
Very good 🙂
I,d still say they used skyhooks.
Tell them they can get the breaks if they build it using only materials and technology available in Noah’s day.
Where would they go for wood?
/@
I see what you did there.
That is completely impractical. The tension in the rope pulling bronto’s neck would be grossly excessive, especially at that flat angle. Plus of course it would strangle the poor beast.
Some sort of kingpost arrangement might help a little bit but not really enough to do much good.
That is completely impractical. The tension in the rope pulling bronto’s neck would be grossly excessive, especially at that flat angle. Plus of course it would strangle the poor beast. And if it didn’t break or strangle Bronto, it’d probably cause compression failure in his neck vertebrae.
Some sort of kingpost arrangement might help a little bit but not really enough to do much good.
Srsly, I wouldn’t let Hanna Barbera design a… a door stop.
Believe it or not, but not all of us Kentuckians are religious. And, we wear shoes. And some of us don’t give a sh!t about basketball. And a good many of us don’t diddle our sisters. We’re pretty much like everyone else, at least the other states I have lived . . . Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia and Oklahoma. By the way, I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in a non-conservative place.
Most papers don’t have proofreaders/copyeds anymore…the writers have to do the work themselves or it’s passed off to an unpaid/underpaid intern. It’s because most papers are barely hanging on…they’ve laid off entire departments of staff and hire contracters or freelancers when needed.
I wonder how much editors change reporters’ stories. I perceive, however subjectively or objectively, that more and more opinion is being inserted into putatively objective news stories. (I understand that it’s practically impossible to be purely objective.) Apparently, something is “odd” or “eccentric” because a reporter says so. Editors are either changing copy or agreeing with reporters’ bloviating opinionating. I’ve noted this particularly, and unfortunately, in the NY Times. The Associate Press is beyond amelioration, in my opinion. The mass media seems to be taking its cue from The National Inquirer. We are awash in “infotainment.”
But for a simple, really small compromise — the agreement to not discriminate in hiring — the ark will be delayed for possibly several years, and maybe forever.
Oh, my Ham, why dost thou forsake me?
Or pending the structural engineering QC stamp of approval. If it is built, it will have the same stability as an Aggie bonfire.
Hello Mark, me again. Don’t know if you’ve seen it, but you’ll find the update here:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/the-dog-delusion-pope-francis-proclaims-that-all-animals-will-go-to-heaven/#comment-1109826
You found me! ‘Round Perditions flames, as it were…
Yes, this was important, and so thank you very much! I have replied back at the old post.
My pleasure!
If he could build a 150 m seaworthy wooden vessel, I’d think a crane would be the least of his worries.
The Noah’s ark myth is an endless source for material. This one pays a bit of homage to our neighbors to the north as well.
http://pictoraltheology.blogspot.com/2014/12/its-another-magic-punday.html
Get thee to a punnery!
For the punmeister’s targets is it always the goal,
to equal scale weighing delight and dole
Well first, let’s get the most important comment out of the way…yay!
Now for the quibble. 🙂
Well, if KY gives the same tax rebate to other start-up for-profit businesses of all religions and none, then the government is not giving a tax advantage to either religion in general or any specific religion. IANAL but it seems to me this is somewhat equivalent to the government hosting an open forum. Just as the goverment can allow religious scenes on government property so long as it allows non-religious ones too and doesn’t use message-related criteria for selection, the government can subsidize both religious and non-religious themeparks so long as it gives incentives to both and decides who gets the tax rebate based on non-message based criteria.
I’ll go with Hempenstein @4 on this one: regardless of how dedicated AiG and Ham might be about this project, the events of the last couple of years have written “business failure” all over it. Okay, I won’t be surprised if some site construction occurs, but I’ll be mildly surprised if it ever opens as a theme park, and very surprised if it ever gets out of the red.
I’m not going to claim to understand the USian tax system in the slightest, but doesn’t that mean that it’s (potentially) an endless pit into which otherwise taxable income can be hidden when the taxman and/ or auditors come around. Cue an endless series of appeals to the congregations to “stop us from going under”. “Dragged down by the ark” – now there’s a headline!
If only the editors of the Louisville Courier-Journal had consulted the How To Use An Apostrophe instructions at The Oatmeal.
I love the watermelon sentence.
Where can I get my hands on a Jellybean hat?
I do not mean to pick on any specific individuals in Kentucky so please do not take it personal. I also currently live in what is becoming a “conservative or Red” state as well. I would also say the same about Iowa. I have also lived in other places like California and Hawaii – Imagine that, with shoes and indoor plumbing.
I thought the point of California and Hawaii was that you don’t need indoor plumbing because you don’t need an indoors?
Doesn’t everyone live on the beaches there. When they’re not dancing on fresh lava?
“It also said the park has evolved.” Ha ha!
I was wondering if anyone else was going to point that out. I’ll bet Mr. Stewart waited all day to deliver that line!
Sub
Phew! Sometimes there is good news!
I have a hard time believing Kentucky made this decision on principle; politicians seem to do the right thing only when their craven interests are at risk.
Would you reasonably say that craven politicians (human herd managers?) respond to their craven constituencies?
“a secularist organization pointing out that the Ark Encounter intended to proceed with preferential hiring based on religion”
Had there been a flood of complaints?
/@
In other words, they were caught out. Either that, or they were so overwhelmed by Ham’s woo they ignored the law in the first place.
If it did ever open, it might make for some good laughs. And you could make a video of yourself walking around exclaiming “How do you know? How do you know!!!!”
” (It’s similar to the illegal practice of the U.S. government giving ministers tax breaks on their housing allowances.)”
?? I thought that was legal?
It’s technically legal but unconstitutional, and the FFRF is challenging it in court now. They won the first round.
sub
Tell me again how Noah got the funding he needed to build the original ark.
godidit
Noah was skimming the prophets …
/@
..skimming the prophets…
+1
I still hope that they raise enough money to build the ark park. I don’t think that the creation museum has changed many people’s minds about the age of the earth… sure it has aided in the brainwashing of people who already believed that the earth was 6,000 years old and/or children who are told by their parents from an early age that the earth is 6,000 years old…. but I’m sure that if the creation museum was never built, the same parents who take their children to the museum will continue to brainwash their children using creationist videos and books. I think that the creation museum does an excellent job of highlighting how batshit crazy young earth creationism is. I think the ark park will beautifully demonstrate how insane it is to actually believe that the noah’s ark story really happened.