There was a curious article in today's TIMES about plans for a Noah's Ark theme park in rural Kentucky. The state has embraced a local developer's idea to build a theme park which would create a living Old Testament where you walk up a real tower of Babel, see Moses part the Red Sea in 3-D and even experience the 10 plagues! Seriously. This sounds like a joke but they are not kidding around.
It reminds me of the days of Jim & Tammy and their Heritage USA, the first religious theme park. Well, we all know how that turned out. The park went belly up when the it's tax-exempt status was revoked. And there is a similar controversy brewing over this project, as people debate whether it is constitutional for a Christian theme park to get massive tax breaks from the state.
What's more disturbing though, is that this is new park is being put together by the folks behind another Kentucky tourist attraction, The Creation Museum. This "museum" depicts the hardcore Christian Creationist view of the world...you know, how dinosaurs and man lived together peacefully and that the earth is only about 6,000 years old. With weird science like that, it definitely seems to be crossing the church/state line as the Kentucky state government bends over backwards provide public incentives to build this sort of religious propaganda. People can believe what they want to believe, for sure, but the taxpayers shouldn't pay for it.
