AU, Baptist Ministers Seek to Intervene in Ark Encounter Suit Against Kentucky

Baptist News is reporting that two Baptist ministers have joined forces with Americans United for Separation of Church and State to intervene on behalf of the state of Kentucky in its defense of denying tax breaks to Ark Encounter.  Bob Allen writes:

Americans United for Separation of Church and State submitted documents March 30 asking a federal court in Frankfort, Ky., to let the quartet intervene in a lawsuit filed Feb. 5 by Answers in Genesis alleging discrimination when the state turned down $18 million in state tax credits for the Ark Encounter project being built in northern Kentucky.

“In their complaint against the State of Kentucky, Ark Encounter has made it clear that a key purpose of the park is to try to convert people to their narrow brand of Christianity,” Chris Caldwell, one of the four, told Baptist News Global. “They are free to do so, but I strongly believe they have no right to force me to help pay for it with my taxes.”

Caldwell, pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., joined Paul Simmons, a one-time professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and two others asking the court to give them a stake in the case. Caldwell is a member of the Baptist News Global board of directors.

Whether this changes the complexity of the suit is not clear.