Kentucky: No tax breaks for Noah's Ark project

[IDemo]

Source: Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, KY.
Kentucky has withdrawn its offer of tax breaks for a religious-themed park that would feature a 500-foot-long wooden ark.

Tourism Secretary Bob Stewart says the planned project had evolved from a tourism attraction into an outreach for the Christian ministry that is building it. Stewart wrote in a letter Wednesday to the group's lawyer that "state tourism tax incentives cannot be used to fund religious indoctrination."

He said the group was no longer honoring its pledge to not discriminate in hiring for the ark park.

The long-planned Ark Encounter attraction is being built by a nonprofit subsidiary of Answers in Genesis, the Kentucky-based Christian ministry that operates the popular and controversial Creation Museum.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article4418881.html

[crim son]

1. In Kentucky?

That is happy news.

[Stonepounder]

12. Kentucky is not nearly as Conservative as people seem to think.

Yes, we have to take responsibility for Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, but at the state level all of the top elected officials are Dems. Rural Ky is Conservative, as is common everywhere, but the urban areas keep growing, like Louisville, Lexington, and Northern Ky up near Cincinnati. Quit painting the South with one big brush! California goes solidly Democratic, but area wise California is about 90% Red and 10% Blue (Or thereabouts)

[tomm2thumbs]

2. No doubt they knew they'd lose suit after suit if they did it -- glad their eyes opened wide

instead of the tax-payers' wallets

[LeftyMom]

3. The funding for the thing hasn't really come together and AIG keeps scaling back their plans.

I suspect that this is less of a principled stand by the KY government than a realization that they'd be pissing money away on a tourist trap that either wasn't going to be built at all or would be half-assed.

[Feral Child]

6. I concur.

It's unlikely they'd have back-out on principal. It's just that their time hasn't come yet.

[SoapBox]

4. Whatever made them cut off the government benefits...

Cool!

Take that and shove it Fundies.

[jmowreader]

5. One look at AIG's other project would have stopped me from granting tax breaks

The "popular and controversial" Creation Museum (aka "Ken Ham's Dinosaur Museum&quot is struggling for one simple reason: everyone who has wanted to see it, has. They've added ziplining (although why in hell you'd want to do this in the area of the Creation Museum is another question) and a planetarium, but the original attraction - the dinosaur shit - hasn't really changed since he opened it because young-earth creationism hasn't changed.

The same problem awaits this Noah's Ark thing: go once and you're good.

[Feral Child]

7. Yes.

Despite the hopes and dreams of Corporate Christianity and Republican Dominionist legislators, the audience just doesn't exist.

[Adrahil]

10. But Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas did so well!

...... Ohhh.... Never mind.

[1StrongBlackMan]

11. Oh it exists ...

it's just a hell of a lot smaller than they wish to claim.

[Feral Child]

14. Yeah, it is.

Congress acts like it's 90% of the population, though.

[brooklynite]

8. So, the "Quiverfull" movement isn't doing it's job?

Not turning out enough new babies to compensate?

[blkmusclmachine]

9. Guess god wasn't with them, after all...

[Sheepshank]

13. As a non profit , they'll get some tax breaks anyway.

If they turn into a giant church, they'll get even more tax breaks....just you watch