The Ark Encounter park, which is a fundamentalist Christian theme park being built in Kentucky to feature, among other terrific attractions, a reproduction of Noah's Ark and "an exhibit explaining how fossils were created by God," will require its employees to "sign a 'statement of faith' banning homosexual conduct. In addition to the statement of faith, employees also have to sign a 'creation statement' agreeing that God created the world 6000 years ago, banning anyone who does not confirm to fundamentalist ideology from applying."
Okay, fine, whatever. But here's the rub:
[Ark Encounter] has been approved for $18 million in tax incentives from the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority.And what a fun thing it will be for all the LGBT folks employed at those local hotels and restaurants to host the visitors to Homophobic Six Flags!
...Defending the decision to award tax incentives to the project, Kentucky finance board chairman Keith Williams said: "They could produce a good amount of tourism for the state of Kentucky. It could help the hotel industry, the restaurant industry in that entire area. So if that is the case, and it does boost tourism, then they, yeah, they meet that criteria."
It's pretty terrific that Kentucky taxpayers, including LGBT, atheist, and/or non-Christian taxpayers, get to see their tax dollars being used to support rank bigotry disguised as entertainment. Neat.
This shouldn't even be legal.
[Via Sean.]
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