Monday, October 27, 2014

Kentucky Halts Taxpayer Financing for Creationist Museum


The United States Constitution and virtually ever state constitution bars the establishment of a particular faith or dogma as the official religion and likewise prohibits the provision of special state benefits to a particular religious group.  This means that if one is receiving taxpayer derived funds, one cannot impose discriminatory requirements for employment at the taxpayer funded facility.   It's really a very simple concept unless, of course, one is a Christofascist who believes that the laws apply to everyone else, but not themselves. As Slate reports, Kentucky stupidly issued state bonds to help finance a a Noah’s Ark–themed creationist amusement park under the guise that it would supposedly  create 600 to 700 jobs.  Now, the state has ceased advancing funds because the theme park - Ark Encounter - has put in place discriminatory hiring practices and requiring applicants to sign a extreme Christofascist statement of faith.  Obviously, the state financing should never have been awarded to the project in the first place.  Here are highlights from Slate on the debacle:
The trouble began when the park, officially called Ark Encounter, listed its employment opportunities in August. Nestled among the requirements for all job applicants were three troubling obligatory documents: “Salvation testimony,” “Creation belief statement,” and a “Confirmation of your agreement with the AiG statement of faith.” (AiG is Answers in Genesis, Ham’s ministry and Ark Encounter’s parent company.) These first two requirements are problematic enough: The park is quite openly instructing all applicants to pledge that they personally believe in creationist Christianity. If an applicant has other beliefs, her application to Ark Encounter isn’t welcome.
But the third requirement is far, far worse. AiG’s statement of faith is no mere loyalty oath: It’s a four-part theological declaration mandating that all signatories accept dozens of fundamentalist Christian principles. Employees at Ark Encounter don’t just have to believe in God; they have to believe in Christ, the Holy Spirit, Satan (as “the personal spiritual adversary of both God and mankind”), Adam and Eve, “the Great Flood of Genesis,” a 6,000-year-old Earth, and the eternal damnation of “those who do not believe in Christ.” All employees must follow “the duty of Christians” and attend “a local Bible believing church.” Just for good measure, employees must oppose abortion, euthanasia, gay rights, and trans rights.

Ark Encounter isn’t privately funded; the citizens of Kentucky have been roped into paying for it, whether they like it or not. Earlier this year, Kentucky’s Tourism Development Finance Authority gave preliminary support for $18.25 million in tax credits for Ark Encounter, citing Ham’s promise that the project would create 600 to 700 jobs. And that’s just for the first phase of construction; ultimately, the state could grant Ark Encounter up to $73 million in tax breaks.

Tax breaks come with government oversight—and right now, the Kentucky government doesn’t like what it sees. As Americans United for Separation of Church and State pointed out, Section 5 of the Kentucky constitution states that the government may never preference “any religious sect, society, or denomination” over another. Courts have interpreted this section to mean that the state may not create benefits for the public that are available only to specific religious groups. Yet that is precisely what Kentucky has done by funding Ark Encounter with taxpayer money.

One voice has been conspicuously absent from the debate over Ark Encounter’s intolerance: that of Christian conservatives.  . . . . This collective conservative shrug at Ark Encounter’s discriminatory practices is as revealing as it is unsurprising. The persecution complex of conservative Christians is based upon a fever dream, a strangely aspirational fantasy that they will someday face the same kind of persecution that minority groups face on a daily basis. Actual persecution—of gay and trans people, say, or non-Christians—seems to not bother them.
The citizens of Kentucky shouldn’t be forced to subsidize a religious group or its discriminatory practices. It is their religious freedom—not Ken Ham’s—that is truly at stake.

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