Creationist Ark Museum Suing To Practice Religious Discrimination At Taxpayer Expense

Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter wants to ensure its “right” to practice religious discrimination and is now suing over “increasing government hostility towards religion.”

Australian-born Ken Ham believes many things. He believes the bible is the literal word of god, he believes in the Christian story of creation and that the universe is just 6000 years old. He believes in the story of Noah’s ark. And he believes in his god-given and constitutionally protected right to discriminate.

Employees of Ham’s Kentucky Creation Museum must “abide by and agree to our Statement of Faith, to include the statement on marriage and sexuality, and conduct themselves accordingly.”

That Statement of Faith includes claims that all “66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. It is the supreme authority in everything it teaches. Its authority is not limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes but includes its assertions in such fields as history and science.”

“Satan is the personal spiritual adversary of both God and mankind,” is another claim employees must agree upon. So is life begins at the moment of conception.

And this claim about marriage and homosexuality.

WATCH: Creationist Ken Ham Is Furious Over Carnival’s Super Bowl Ad

“The only legitimate marriage sanctioned by God is the joining of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture. God intends sexual intimacy to only occur between a man and a woman who are married to each other, and has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. Any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography, or any attempt to change one’s gender, or disagreement with one’s biological gender, is sinful and offensive to God.”

Ham claims that his Ark Encounter museum, currently under construction, should also have the right to discriminate based on religion. His Creation Museum is run by his “ministry,” Answers in Genesis, but he claims the Ark project will be run by a separate entity not subject to the ministry’s same Statement of Faith.

That’s how he has planned to get millions in tax breaks for his Ark Encounter theme park, but the State of Kentucky finally realized that Ham would still discriminate in hiring and employment on the basis of religious belief and pulled the tax breaks. Ham  wants the “right” to not hire atheists, gays, or anyone who does not wholly embrace his religious viewpoints.

So now Ham is suing in federal court.

“Our organization spent many months attempting to reason with state officials so that this lawsuit would not be necessary,” said Ham in a statement. “However, the state was so insistent on treating our religious entity as a second-class citizen that we were simply left with no alternative but to proceed to court. This is the latest example of increasing government hostility towards religion in America, and it’s certainly among the most blatant.”

He also claims that Kentucky pulling the tax breaks, amounting to $18 million, “violates federal and state law and amounts to unlawful viewpoint discrimination.”

In other words, Ham wants to practice religious discrimination and wants the taxpayers to foot the bill for it.

 

Image: Ark Encounter
Hat tip: Talking Points Memo