A new tourist attraction had just secured land near Burlington, Ky., in fall 2000 with the dream of using dinosaur statues to teach families that the Earth is just 6,000 years old and dinosaurs were part of the animal throng on Noah’s Ark. Australian native Ken Ham and his Answers in Genesis group, with infrastructure funding support from Kentucky, would eventually open the Creation Museum in 2007.
Writer Chris Kemp interviewed Ham, Boone County politicians and Burlington residents to discuss the museum’s controversial mission and the emerging trend across the U.S. of religious fundamentalists battling scientific concepts such as evolution and climate change.
The story quoted a UC political science professor saying that suburban Northern Kentucky was “fertile ground” for fundamentalist groups like Answers in Genesis, which “pose a threat (to democracy) if they have political aspirations.”
Excerpt:
“(Founder Ken Ham) is hoping the museum each year will attract as many as 100,000 visitors eager to learn about all aspects of science from a biblical perspective.
“ ‘I’ve been concerned about this development. A lot of us have,’ says Dave Meyer, professor of geology at the University of Cincinnati. ‘They’re just saying absurd things. You just can’t change the way these guys think, but they’re trying to make it look like they have real geological evidence of a catastrophic flood and a young Earth history. It’s a small splinter of Christians. They’re a small minority of what you’d call fundamentalists.’ ”
Today:
The Creation Museum indeed became a tourist attraction, with annual attendance above 250,000. It’s added features over the years — from a petting zoo to zip lines — and now encompasses 70,000 square feet of exhibits, food stands, gardens and, yes, dinosaur statues.
Answers in Genesis is moving forward with another tourist project, the Ark Encounter, an 800-acre theme park depicting Noah’s Ark. The state of Kentucky and the Northern Kentucky community of Williamstown are investing taxpayer money in the project.
“Small splinter” fundamentalists have thrived as well, ratcheting up pressure on community school systems to accept their religious beliefs on par with long-established scientific tenets. They maintain a foothold in Ohio, where legislators are considering a bill to repeal Common Core educational standards and allow creationism and “intelligent design” to be taught alongside evolution in state public schools.
Remember that threat to democracy we were warned about if fundamentalist kooks found political aspirations? That would be the Tea Party, which emerged after President Obama’s election in the 2008. How’d that turn out?
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2014.
