Answers in Genesis has an explanation for why the state of Kentucky yanked the tax exemption from their Ark Park. It doesn’t have much basis in reality, which is probably why they presented it on Fox News this morning.
Smarmy AiG Lawyer: We have a theory about that. I think it’s because these radical atheist kind of organizations have applied political pressure, and it’s sad when that happens. It also happens to be unlawful and that’s why it looks like we may be headed to court.
Fox News host: Why is it unlawful?
Hey, that was my question! Why should it be unlawful for an atheist organization to use politics to oppose actions that are against their interests? That’s what politics is for!
His answer provoked an irony explosion in my brain.
SAL: Well, you can’t treat religious groups differently than everyone else. … They can’t do that under federal or state law.
But that’s what AiG wants! They are prohibited under state or federal law from receiving special tax breaks while discriminating on the basis of religion. AiG wants to be treated differently from all the other groups to which the state gives specific tax incentives by being allowed to violate state requirements.
He also babbles avuncularly about how the Ark Park has always been set up as a religious theme park, so the state can’t act surprised about that now…but that’s another of their sleazy elisions. They tried to set it up so AiG/the Creation Museum were the religous/evangelical side of the business, but the Ark Park was to be a for-profit, semi-independent entity — they want both the privileges of a religious organization and of a secular corporation, and they played fast-and-loose with sliding donations between the two.
They’ve been trying to game the system for years. It’s about time it caught up with them.
Sorry, but I ain’t watching anything from Fox News. Fuck that. I’m not about to let that many brain cells die.
Of course AiG tries to spin that story. And of course Fox eats it up like it’s the Gospel truth. Not at all surprised.
What part of “You’re full of it, and every time you whine to the courts they affirm that you’re full of it” don’t you understand?
Well, I imagine that some of the libertarian sub-group of atheism are okay with businesses practicing discrimination, but generally movement atheists seem to agree on ‘either the Ark Park is a religious enterprise that isn’t eligible for certain tax breaks, or it isn’t and can’t avoid hiring atheists or pagans or Muslims or liberal Christians who think Noah is an allegory if they are qualified’.
It’s unclear to me that their intended hiring discrimination would be legal even without the tax incentives. When you’re selling admission tickets to something you claim will promote tourism, it’s a little hard to pretend that it’s a private club or worship service.
At any rate, we’ll never know because even with the tax incentives they aren’t remotely close to having enough money to build that turkey. They know perfectly well that the tax incentives don’t matter at this point. The threatened lawsuit is just a sleazy ploy to cry persecution and beg for more money.
This is a pretty serious violation of Ken Ham’s ability to worship God the way Jesus commanded: by making boatloads of money from a giant theme park. It’s in the Bible, totally.
yup.
you know what’s fun? tracking projects like this from similar groups in other countries.
here in NZ, it’s the Thomas Weeks inspired “Destiny Church”… that want’s to steal people’s money to putatively build a “golden city” for worship south of Auckland.
I swear, I can’t guess how long it will it will take people to finally realize that organized religion is nothing less than a con game, looking to steal your cash.
I went to laugh at the comments… Interestingly though, most were spot on, and fully rejected the idiotic arguments made by the “lawyer who doesn’t know the law”.
My guess is your average fox viewer got displaced by commenters bopping over from science sites that have mentioned the Ark debacle for a long time now.
Okay, now this is unclear. Is he talking about organizations which are radical atheist kind of organizations — as opposed to the atheist kind of organizations which are filled with atheists who are just fine — or is he talking about organizations which are radical because they are ‘atheist kind of organizations?’ He’s a lawyer, he needs to address the ambiguity here. We can’t tell and it’s really important.
lol
I saw nothing, in anything that man said, that actually would indicate he IS a lawyer, other than Fox News labeled him such.
http://www.freedomguardnow.org/
another religious right wing cult, masquerading as a law firm.
I’m sure they will do spectacularly in court, as all others of this kind of organization have previously.
LOL
…oh, and you want to know the real reason this group took on the ark park as their pet project?
well, I’ll tell you:
“Mike” is the guy you saw speak in the clip.
I rather suspect Mr Ham is secretly thrilled about this. Now when the project goes down the tubes he can point to this as the reason, and face fewer questions as to where the money went. And if he can raise even more money to fund a phony legal fight, that’s even better.
yup. I think you nailed it there.
They could never admit to something like that: it doesn’t fit into their persecution complex.
I smell the sulfurous stench a Hobby Lobby claim all over this. The other point is they are expecting 1.8 million Christians to turn up in the first year. Where will they fit them all? They will either need a bigger boat or more than one pair of lions to feed them to.
I’m a radical kind of atheist. Cowabunga, dude!
Christians who accept Ken Ham’s statements. Would they number in the hundreds or the millions? It’s America; I’m guessing the millions.
He has one point – everyone knows that the Kentucky legislature is in the palm of big atheist. When atheists say jump those legislators don’t even ask how high they just start jumping around like jumping beans.
@weatherwax:12
Perhaps the park should set up a show entitled “Springtime for Jesus“.
I get the feeling that Ken Ham say “The Producers” and thought (does he think?) it was an instructional video.
Arrrghhh… s/say/saw/
“I swear, I can’t guess how long it will it will take people to finally realize that organized religion is nothing less than a con game, looking to steal your cash.”
–>So far it’s been the length of recorded human history, so I’m kinda going with “never” on this one. Now I has a sad.
Hold on, they specifically setup the Ark Park as a profit making, secular business to get the Kentucky tourism tax break, rather than just saying it’s a church thing and get those tax perks? If they chose the latter, they could discriminate all they want and tell the people that their
ride ticketreligious donation can be written off of their taxes, and also get the church tax perks. To make this rational, and money tends to make the religious very rational, the Kentucky tourism tax break must have been a better option for the bottom line than just claiming it was a church.“Answers in Genesis”? Antsy and Disingenous is more like it.