Turns out new House Speaker Mike Johnson used to be a mouthpiece for the “Answers in Genesis” Bible literalism group that has a “Noah’s Ark Encounter” museum in Kentucky.
Mr Johnson was legal advocate for the group in its drive to secure taxpayer funding for the project.
WDRB Louisville (Kentucky) December 20, 2018:
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Answers in Genesis, which unsuccessfully sought tourism tax incentives for a biblical theme park in northern Kentucky, said Tuesday it will file a federal lawsuit against Kentucky for “viewpoint discrimination.”
The group expects to file suit on Thursday, attorney Mike Johnson said.
Ken Ham, president and CEO of Answers in Genesis, said in a video posted to answersingenesis.org that the proposed lawsuit involves “freedom of religion, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech in this great nation of America.”
“Numerous bloggers and media outlets have spread a lot of misinformation about the tax rebate program and also a lot of false information about employment laws as they relate to the Ark Encounter project,” Ham said.
Mike Johnson in Answers in Genesis – Ark Encounter Incentives Are About Tourism:
Editor’s note: The following op-ed appeared on Sunday on the website of Kentucky’s largest newspaper, the Courier-Journal of Louisville. Written by an attorney assisting AiG in matters related to the Ark Encounter, the op-ed dispels some widely held myths associated with the construction of the Ark that major media (e.g., The New York Times) and secular bloggers have been circulating.
One would expect that any project that will bring millions of dollars in new capital investment, create hundreds of jobs and be a tremendous asset to the communities of Northern Kentucky would be enthusiastically welcomed by every Kentuckian. But because the project at issue is the Ark Encounter theme park, a few radical secularists and others are doing their best to oppose the park and misrepresent both the law and the related facts. Fortunately, the secularists’ arguments hold no water.
The opponents’ interpretation of the Constitution is one that has been repeatedly rejected by the courts. There is simply no question that the commonwealth’s allowance of tax refund incentives in exchange for the Ark Encounter’s extraordinary economic impact to the area will fully comply with the safeguards of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court has long acknowledged that when a government’s financial benefits program is facially neutral toward religion (as the Kentucky Tourism Development Act certainly is), the provision of funding to an applicant who may happen to have a particular religious identity or viewpoint is in no way a violation of the Constitution.
Kentucky officials are smart to enthusiastically embrace the Ark Encounter, and the millions of tourists the park will welcome to the area from every viewpoint, race, color, religion and creed. Answers in Genesis aims to encourage critical thought and respectful public debate about the various attractions and ideas that will be presented at its park, and that is the beauty and essence of free speech.
If the secularists were truly proponents of the First Amendment as they claim, they would want to welcome that civic discourse (and tremendous economic development), rather than stamp it out. When the Ark Project sails, everybody will benefit—even those who are stubbornly trying to sink it.
According to the Supreme Court: “[T]he guarantee of neutrality is respected, not offended, when the government, following neutral criteria and evenhanded policies, extends benefits to recipients whose ideologies and viewpoints, including religious ones, are broad and diverse.” Rosenberger v. Virginia (1995).
Since its inception, the development act has been applied to extend nearly $100 million in tax refund incentives to a diverse array of recipients—all to increase tourism and economic development.
Just as every rational person understands the commonwealth was not somehow “endorsing” the consumption of alcohol when it approved tax refunds for a beer distillery tour project in 2012, or “endorsing” the speech of every stand-up comedian or adult-themed entertainer who may fill the stage at one of the entertainment venues previously approved, there can be no valid argument that the commonwealth will somehow endorse the private religious speech or viewpoints that may be expressed at the Ark Encounter Park.
This is clearly not a government “grant,” as the secularists have claimed, because not a single penny will be pulled from the existing state treasury to help build or support the Ark project. Instead, the commonwealth has merely agreed as an incentive that it will refund a portion of the brand-new tax dollars that are generated by the park itself, if and when the park meets certain attendance-performance levels at the end of each year. It’s the same deal that every other participant in the act has been given—and that is precisely the “government neutrality” that is required by the First Amendment.
According to the Bible: Dinosaurs first existed around 6,000 years ago.3 God made the dinosaurs, along with the other land animals, on Day 6 of the Creation Week (Genesis 1:20–25, 31). Adam and Eve were also made on Day 6—so dinosaurs lived at the same time as people, not separated by eons of time.
Dinosaurs could not have died out before people appeared because dinosaurs had not previously existed; and death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering are a result of Adam’s sin (Genesis 1:29–30; Romans 5:12, 14; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22).
Representatives of all the kinds of air-breathing land animals, including the dinosaur kinds, went aboard Noah’s Ark. All those left outside the Ark died in the cataclysmic circumstances of the Flood, and many of their remains became fossils.
After the Flood, around 4,300 years ago, the remnant of the land animals, including dinosaurs, came off the Ark and lived in the present world, along with people. Because of sin, the judgments of the Curse and the Flood have greatly changed earth. Post-Flood climatic change, lack of food, disease, and man’s activities caused many types of animals to become extinct. The dinosaurs, like many other creatures, died out. Why the big mystery about dinosaurs?
Tourism-wise, the Ark Encounter was a complete dud for the community that provided the tax breaks.
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How is having >800,000 attendees a year a “complete dud” ?
The falloff in 2020 is easily attributable to COVID.
It means they wouldn’t have made any money without taxpayer welfare support. They’re all a bunch of welfare whores
Where is the math?
Business proposals get tax benefits all the time for promises of employment/economic benefit to the state or area. Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory got tons of tax abatements.
800,000 visitors a year probably brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the state. All those people need food to eat and places to sleep and other places to visit.
I think the guy’s full of it with regard to the 1st Amendment, but rhymeswithgoalie was talking about the economics.
The math doesn’t matter, the government has no business funding museums to fairy tales
The Ark Encounter captures most of the visitor’s money with the gift shop and cafeteria, and the vast majority of visitors are day trippers.
Also, at least pre-pandemic they were overworking their Good Christian volunteers. Ken Ham always got his cut, though.
It’s a dud for the county and township that spent all of the money on extra roads and emergency services in the hope that their Main Street would get more business. And getting Ken Ham to square his claims of attendance with the per-capita fees he was supposed to pay the local county took a legal struggle.
(It’s a common problem, with the Olympics or World Cup or pro stadium sold to the local community in terms of increased local business, then the event/stadium managers capture a lot of the money and the locals get very little.)
So it’s bigot, homophobe, climate denier, creationist.
Even the Senate Republicans are telling the House Republicans to “take their meds.”
Pretty crowded on that 300 cubit (130 metres) ark, with a full complement of titanosaurs (up to 37 metres, ~50 species.)
‘The things that your liable
to read in the Bible,
it ain’t necessarily so…)
The Index to Creationist Claims
https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CH200-CH799
Some of my favorite Floode and Arke arguments:
– they used baby versions of animals (ignoring the extra food animals eat)
– lumping large biological Classes into Biblical “kinds” (requiring super-duper-evolution to repopulate the planet)
– all modern humans are descended from 5* people in less than 10,000 years (supersonic evolution again)
– gazillion insect species survived on floating vegetation mats
______________________________
*Noah, wife, three daughters-in-law
Take it from me, a person who had 3 years of Evangelical religious instruction jammed down his neck before age 13, all these people are simpletons of the first order. So here is the truth: many old testament stories were made up by the Jewish people when they were enslaved by the Babylonians for almost a century starting 597 BCE. Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus are first written during this time. Noah’s Arc was borrowed from the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is a story about the flood caused by the Mediterranean after it sprung a leak to create the Black Sea ~ 8000 years ago. [[[ did no modern person ever ask where all the water went after a world wide flood? ]]] The third (sometime forth) commandment (Remember the Sabbath day) came from an observation that the Babylonians only worked 6 days a week. There is no record that the Jewish people were ever enslaved in Egypt. [[[ no record has ever been found on the walls of any king’s tomb, which act as time capsules ]]] I could go on for 100 pages but I think you get my point.
Seems ironic that the park had roadway damage due to a landslide caused by heavy rains in 2017/2018. Insurance companies denied claims on the basis of faulty construction.
A failure in incorporating climate change into their planning process?
Climate what?