Noah's Ark park officials plan to sue Kentucky

Chris Kenning and Tom Loftus | The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The group seeking to build a Noah's Ark theme park in Kentucky said Tuesday it will file a federal discrimination lawsuit against the state for rejecting its application for tax incentives to help finance the park.

Tourism officials in December denied tax incentives worth roughly $18 million for the Ark Encounter — a biblical theme park to include a 510-foot-long wooden ship — over concerns that it had evolved from a tourist attraction to an effort to advance a religion and that developers planned to discriminate in hiring based on religion.

Answers in Genesis, the group behind the plan, said in a statement that the decision "by Kentucky officials, including Gov. Steve Beshear, violates federal and state law" and amounted to discrimination. A lawyer for the group said it plans to file the suit in U.S. District Court on Thursday.

The vow to take legal action comes on the heels of AiG's public billboard campaign in Kentucky and elsewhere, including in New York City, seeking to rebut "intolerant" critics. For Answers in Genesis, loss of the state funds could limit the size of the project.

"Our organization spent many months attempting to reason with state officials so that this lawsuit would not be necessary," Answers in Genesis President Ken Ham said in a release. "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."

Officials with the Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet declined to comment Tuesday.

Ark Encounter is proposing a $73 million project in Grant County that would include an Old Testament ark, a petting zoo, theater, two cafes and gift shop. Answers in Genesis also built the controversial Creation Museum in Kentucky.

In December, Kentucky's Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet turned down the group's application for the tax rebates, arguing that the Ark Encounter had changed its position on hiring policies since filing its original application in 2010 and now intended to discriminate based on religion.

The park, cabinet officials said in a letter, had evolved from a tourist attraction into an extension of the ministry activities of Answers in Genesis, which promotes a literal interpretation of the Bible's Old Testament and argues that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

"State tourism tax incentives cannot be used to fund religious indoctrination or otherwise be used to advance religion," Tourism Secretary Bob Stewart wrote in the letter. "The use of state incentives in this way violates the separation of church and state provisions of the Constitution and is therefore impermissible."

Mike Johnson, an attorney for the Ark Encounter, said that decision constituted "an unlawful action on the part of the state."

An Answers in Genesis news release said that after granting preliminary approval to the project last summer, state officials caved in to pressures brought by "anti-Christian groups" who objected to Answers in Genesis' "statutory right to limit its hiring to people of the Christian faith, and to the content of the messages that will be presented in the Bible-themed park."

Ham said in a video statement that the park is slated to open next year. A consultant's report found that the park could attract up to 640,000 visitors in its best year, far less than the 1.2 million to 2.2 million visitors estimated by the project's developers.