Despite an incredibly austere budget for 2012, the struggling state of Kentucky will move forward with allocating public funds toward the building of a creationist theme park, which features Noah and his Ark. Cripes. Some details about the project from Laurie Goodstein in the New York Times:

“Since Gov. Steven L. Beshear announced the plan on Wednesday, some constitutional experts have raised alarms over whether government backing for an enterprise that promotes religion violates the First Amendment’s requirement of separation of church and state. But Mr. Beshear, a Democrat, said the arrangement posed no constitutional problem, and brushed off questions about his stand on creationism.

‘The people of Kentucky didn’t elect me governor to debate religion,’ he said at a news conference. ‘They elected me governor to create jobs.’

The theme park was conceived by the same Christian ministry that built the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., where dioramas designed to debunk evolution show humans and dinosaurs coexisting peacefully on an earth created by God in six days. The ministry, Answers in Genesis, believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old — a controversial assertion even among many Bible-believing Christians.

Although the Creation Museum has been a target of ridicule by some, it has drawn 1.2 million visitors in its first three years — proving that there is a sizable paying audience for entertainment rooted in a literal interpretation of the Bible.”

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“Something big is happening”: