Owners of Noah’s Ark Sue Over Rain Damage

The owners of Noah’s Ark have sued their insurance company over rain damage. It didn’t happen on Mount Ararat, but in Kentucky, off Interstate 75, on State Route 36 in Williamstown.

Ark Encounter, a Bible-themed tourist attraction, was partially funded by state economic development dollars because, First Amendment be damned, Biblical Literalism is the state religion of Kentucky. It took 2 years of heavy rain, not forty days and forty nights, to damage a publicly-funded access road, and the park’s insurance provider says that’s not covered. As election time nears, we predict political, not divine, intervention.

Note to nonbelievers: Kentucky’s major tourism attractions are horses, bourbon, music, arts, the outdoors and food, not big Biblical boats with dinosaurs.

More:

“Ark Encounter: State-Subsidized Religious Tourism in Kentucky,” NotionsCapital.com

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Image (“Ark Encounter, after Edward Hicks”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Ark Encounter: State-Subsidized Religious Tourism in Kentucky

Noah’s Ark may have landed on Mount Ararat, but you can see it in Kentucky off Interstate 75, on State Route 36 in Williamstown. Answers In Genesis, the outfit behind the Creation(ism) Museum, has built a 510-foot-long biblical boat as a tourist attraction, Ark Encounter ($40 admission, $10 parking).  The wooden hull is stocked with pairs of animals said to be on the Ark, including dinosaurs (from the Book of Flintstones?). There’s also a zoo, but don’t expect any dinosaurs there.

Ark Encounter opened on July 7th and was built at a cost $102 million. Of that, $62 million was raised from Industrial Development Bonds issued by the City of Williamstown. The Kentucky state government granted Ark Encounter $18 million in tax incentives and is building a new $10 million highway interchange for the new Christian theme park.

The rationale for granting this public largesse for religious evangelism is that the big boat will stimulate the tourist economy and create jobs. Want to apply for those jobs? You’ll have to sign a statement of faith in Genesis and Jesus Christ, disavowing homosexuality, same-sex marriage and premarital sex. Somehow, Federal Judge Greg Van Tatenhove (alumnus of Christian Asbury University) has ruled that this is all constitutional and isn’t state sponsorship of religion. It seems Ark Encounter is a secular outfit when it gets public funding and tax breaks, but a religious organization when it hires employees. Glory be, it’s a miracle!