Kentucky Governor Announces Creation Theme Park

Transcript from Newsy

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

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The governor of Kentucky announced plans for a $150 million theme park based on a literal reading of the Bible’s book of Genesis. Governor Steve Beshear held a press conference alongside representatives from Ark Encounters, LLC, and Answers in Genesis, the two organizations collaborating on the project.



The park is scheduled to include a first-century style village, a replica of the Tower of Babel, children’s play areas and petting zoos, and the main attraction: a full-size Noah’s Ark based on Biblical descriptions. (Images: Ark Encounter)



The park is expected to take part in Kentucky's tourism development program, allowing it to recoup 25% of its construction costs in sales tax rebates. The tax incentive has secularist groups warning about possible church/state violations. On MSNBC, radio host Sam Seder notes parks for other religions wouldn’t bring enough tourism to qualify for breaks, making the situation tricky.



“The real question is could another religion actually build their own theme park? Would they qualify for this type of subsidy? … Is it in practice actually discriminatory, because only a Christian theme-park could actually qualify for these subsidies in practice."



The governor responded to a similar question, arguing the Kentucky tourism law is religiously neutral and has been used by other organizations like NASCAR.



“This is an application for a theme park. The law doesn’t allow us to discriminate about the entertainment subject matter of theme parks as long as it’s legal and in good taste."



Another legal difficulty is whether the park can hire on the basis of religion. Answers in Genesis’ other attraction, a creation-themed museum, requires employees to provide a signed statement of belief, according to its website.



Employees must support the organization’s statement of faith, including “The great Flood of Genesis was an actual historic event,” “Those who do not believe in Christ are subject to everlasting conscious punishment,” and “The only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman.” The for-profit Ark Encounter would likely run into legal challenges if they tried to enforce similar hiring rules.



But while legal problems may face the park down the road, the governor is facing criticism over his involvement with the project now. Critics of Answers in Genesis often use Photoshop to portray politicians associated with the group riding dinosaurs.



The group maintains humans and dinosaurs coexisted, and that dinosaurs will be included on the park’s ark model. This batch of images from the Kentucky-centric blog Barefoot and Progressive, shows it’s the governor’s turn on dinoback. The blog goes on to say:



“I just got back from the press conference where Steve Beshear announced his enthusiastic support for a Creationist theme park… Be ashamed, Kentucky. Be very ashamed.”



So should the park be given tax breaks in the name of tourism? Should it be allowed to hire based on religion? Does the governor look good on a triceratops? So many thorny issues to tackle; tackle them in our comments section.

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4. Added :03-Dec-10
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