WHEN the Governor of Kentucky Steve Beshear recently announced a joint venture with creationist crackpot Ken “Dinosaurs walked with man” Ham to build a Noah’s Ark theme park, the rest of the world pointed and laughed.
The laughter has now been overtaken by some rather awkward questions – the most important focusing on a feasibility study cited by Beshear when he unveiled the cockamamie plan. The study predicted that the $150-million park would attract 1.6 million visitors in its first year.
Now it emerges that neither Beshear nor other state officials had seen or read the study, which was commissioned by Ark Encounter, LLC, the group behind the scheme. Nor do any officials possess copies of the report.
And when the Kentucky Herald-Leader asked Ark Encounter for a copy of the 10,000-page study, or at least the 200-page executive report, it was told to go fly a kite.
Jim Waters of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a Libertarian-leaning think tank in Bowling Green, is outraged:
We’ve got people making state economic development decisions without actually seeing the numbers. I think that’s outrageous.
Meanwhile, the lunatic Ham has been stung into answering critics by stating:
A lot of left-wing media and bloggers have reacted very negatively [about the project], writing a lot of false information. They only represent a minority of the people in this nation. The majority of people in this area and across the nation are supportive. The statistics show about 200 million people would want to come if the ark were rebuilt. Locally, the majority of people are really thrilled because it’s family-friendly and it would bring hundreds of jobs to the region.
Ham, founder of the barking mad Answers in Genesis, the ministry that runs the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, about 40 miles from the planned location of the ark, said:
There is a growing anti-Christian element in this nation. This has opened people’s eyes about how anti-Christian these people and some in the media have become.
Also:
We see increasingly in our nation a generation of kids who don’t hear about the Bible anymore in the schools.
AÂ fundie called Britt Beemer, creator of the feasibility study which no-one is allowed to see, said:
You have to realize the Ark cuts across almost all faiths, whether you’re Christian or Jewish. I think 78 percent of people questioned said they would like to see it.
Beemer, by the way, co-authored a book a Ham. It has the hilarious title: Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it.
The Ark, which has made Kentucky the target of late night comedians, may face other hurdles, such as a possible lawsuit from opponents who question whether the deal would violate laws about the separation of church and state.
Hat tip: Marcus