WHY WE FIGHT

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What does it mean exactly to be a secular activist?

It simply means you are not going to sit by and let the Religious Right, namely the Christian Right, receive special treatment from the government. It means you're not just going to get mad that this is happening. It means you're not just going to sit and wait for someone else to act. It means you are going to do something about it — you are going to act.

Being an activist can mean many things to many people, and we will look at that subject more closely in chapter 5, but at its core, being an activist means that you give a damn and you are going to fight. In my case, my fight with Ham had started, yet I didn't even know it.

After the Nye vs. Ham debate was over, Ham wasted no time using the resulting publicity to raise money for his Ark Encounter project. Ham claimed victory, writing a long series of blog posts attacking the arguments Nye had made in the debate and even writing a book about the debate in which he further described his views. Further, Nye had agreed, as part of the debate, to allow Answers in Genesis to sell DVDs of the debate, thus adding to Ham's profit from the debate.

This was the first time Ham and AiG had some real notoriety and, as I had feared most, a taste of fame and sense of purpose. People wanted to know what Ham would do next. To be clear, I was not innocent in any of this, seeing as how I too had begun to write about his every move, but I made this decision knowing few other media outlets would actually question him or hold him accountable for the claims he made.

Through my posts on AlterNet and Salon, I covered Ham extensively during this postdebate period, focusing on his scientifically illiterate creationist beliefs. I also knew Ham had been trying to capitalize on a big block of funding, at the expense of Kentucky taxpayers. The Ark Encounter had applied for a tax incentive under the state's Tourism Development Act to the tune of $43 million dollars, a request based on the outlandish scale to which he thought he could build the attraction. His application was welcomed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky with open arms.

From the beginning, the state had expressed its excitement about the project, praising Ham in a 2010 press conference for deciding to keep the park in the state, as other states in the area had fought for the park, believing it would generate tourism dollars for them. In return, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear promised a massive tax break to his group.

The very first real Ark Encounter piece I wrote was for a site called Atheist Republic, where I recapped Ham's attempts to get a tax rebate from the Commonwealth of Kentucky for his Ark project and the project's failed attempt to raise enough money to begin construction. Rachel Maddow's coverage of the Ark project on MSNBC had set Ham off on a bit of a rampage. He was furious the liberal media had "lied" about his planned park, claiming his group would not be receiving tax money but rather a rebate (from tax money).

I saw his anger as a natural extension of his frustration. At that point, the project seemed doomed. Ham couldn't even raise enough money to drive tractors to the field to break ground, and the $43 million incentive offered by the state was set to expire, so I went back to writing about Ham's weekly freak out over the then newly produced Cosmos series hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. All was right in the world as I started researching other issues that I thought were important for a safe and secular society, which led to articles against anti-vaccine lunatics like Jenny McCarthy. I had no idea the huge turn my life would soon take based on one tweet Ken Ham would send out announcing news I had not seen coming.

Ham and Answers in Genesis had scaled down the Ark Encounter project and reapplied for a tax credit for a smaller version of the park. To my shock, the promise of a tax incentive to Ham was not dead after all. The state had apparently approved an $18 million incentive for the project under the Tourism Development Act, which allows local businesses that bring in tax money to receive a sales tax rebate at the end of the year.

When I saw his announcement via Twitter, I thought immediately of Kentucky's educational system, which had just been in the news for the dire financial situation it was in. I thought about how much $18 million could do for the state's students and its classrooms. And then I thought how instead that money was going to a man who wanted to teach children that every animal alive today descends from animals that had been saved by a man who had built a large wooden boat just before a massive worldwide flood. This is a claim that most children intuitively know is nonsense, but still, if Ham could get to them early enough, I knew he could create more close-minded young-earth creationists.

So I tweeted to Ham that he was stealing tax dollars away from the state and it was costing Kentucky taxpayers $18 million dollars. He flat-out denied this claim and told me that "no government funds will be used to build the ark." I knew this to be a false statement; he had said many times that the millions of dollars the state would return to his group through the tax-rebate program would be used to complete phase two of the park's construction.

My tweet sent Ham on a bit of a tirade. He started writing blog posts about me, saying that secularists and atheists hate Christians and that we want to hurt Kentucky by stopping the Ark Encounter from bringing in millions of dollars to the state. Both charges are laughable and don't merit a response. But he raises an issue worth considering. All other issues aside, is there an economic case for the project? There's at least one comparable destination that might give us a sense of the Ark Encounter's possible benefit to the state — the Creationism Museum. How is it doing? Well, it has seen a drastic decline in attendance since it first opened, despite the addition of zip lines and other non-museum-related attractions intended to drum up business. As a 2012 City Beat article details:

On its 2011 federal income tax return, Answers in Genesis reported a 5 percent drop in museum revenue to $5.1 million. Worse, AIG slumped to its first-ever financial loss — $540,218. As of deadline for City Beat's print edition, AIG hadn't provided financial results for fiscal 2012, which ended June 30.

If his biggest attraction, the Creation Museum, could not generate a massive influx of money for the state, why would I think that the Ark Encounter would either? It doesn't seem like the kind of theme park people will travel to from around the world to see again and again like they do for, say, Disneyland. Come to middle-of-nowhere Kentucky to see a large landlocked boat full of fake animals and no roller coasters! Fun for the whole family? I think not.

Our back-and-forth tweets continued. In the meantime, I had also started my own blog called Danthropology on the Patheos network, where I spent a good deal of my time criticizing the actions of Ham. I knew that even if I couldn't stop him from ripping off taxpayers, I could at least take up a great deal of his time and cost him a lot of money. I assumed the more time he spent responding to me, the less time he had to manage his museum or to raise money, and that was good for everyone. Basically, as I see it, I was doing a public service. You are welcome.

This type of activity reminded me of my days in animal rights activism, when I would hear about activists routinely faxing sheets of black construction paper to vivisection laboratories in order to exhaust their ink cartridges and occupy their lines, costing them money and time. It sounds silly, but those things add up. Although I do not advocate doing anything illegal, the underlying idea here is the same. By forcing Ham to deal with me, I was taking time away from his workday.

I enjoyed being the gadfly, but I also knew my efforts weren't enough. Like a person sitting in a frustrating city hall meeting wishing some magical activist would swoop in and save the day for whatever the cause, I knew something needed to be done. Taking up a few minutes or even hours a day of Ham's time was not going to take down the Ark Encounter. It was a familiar feeling — I felt totally helpless and didn't know what I could do to change the course of events. Quite often it is common for activists to feel helpless — to think that things are just too big for any one person to make a difference.

From experience I knew such thoughts have a tendency to lead to inaction. It becomes very easy to sit around waiting for someone else to do the work that needs to be done. I therefore thought to myself, why can't I stop him from getting that taxpayer money? What would happen if every activist saw a problem and decided to sit around and wait for someone else to pick up the cause? We would all be sitting around doing nothing. The only thing that was going to stop Ken Ham was action, and at that point in time, no one seemed to be doing anything, and I knew I needed to act. So I did.

I realized I had put myself in a position in which I could potentially do a lot of good. I had been researching the project in an attempt to figure out the best angles to attack it, but I had mostly come up empty. This is because Ham seemed, at first, to be smart about his approach. Unlike the museum, a religious nonprofit, he had set up the Ark Encounter as a for-profit business. This entitled him to tax incentives that were being offered to other attractions in the area and limited the ability to attack the legality of the project on separation-of-church-and-state grounds. The park wasn't going to be closed (or never even opened) simply because I thought it was a dumb idea; lots of dumb ideas become businesses.

I asked Ham via Twitter about the park's hiring practices, something I figured he would struggle with, and he assured me they were not then hiring and that they would follow every state and federal law required when they did. They seemed to be playing by the rules; they would have to be, right? They couldn't openly break the law and get taxpayer money, could they? I figured they were simply biting the bullet and playing by the rules, no matter how much they hated it.

This isn't uncommon. Many religious organizations receive taxpayer money, but they must play by the government's rules when it comes to using the money. The problem is, they often break the rules. One of the largest religious organizations that receives taxpayer funding is the Salvation Army. As I wrote for the Huffington Post in 2014:

In 2004, a group of 19 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Salvation Army. The group claimed that the organization, which is a registered evangelical church and charity organization in the United States, was using public taxpayer money to proselytize their evangelical religious beliefs, discriminate, and terminate employees based on religious beliefs.

Anne Lown, a former employee of the organization, felt that this alleged practice was wrong and complained to her management and was subsequently terminated. Lown, who is Jewish, along with the other plaintiffs, contacted the New York branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), alleging that their religious beliefs were often brought into question and that they were threatened with termination or simply fired.

It is alleged that during the interview process, interviewees were asked about their church and religious practices, that those who would not disclose them were dismissed, and that in later interviews they could be threatened with termination if they refused to disclose such information.

A settlement was eventually reached that stopped the organization from using taxpayer funds in this way, but that also allowed the group to admit no wrongdoing, as the employment-discrimination portion of the case was dismissed. The organization receives about $188 million in New York City alone thanks to President George W. Bush's so-called faith-based initiatives program — sadly a program that President Barack Obama had promised to end, but never did.

My piece for the Huffington Post continued, describing just how much proselytizing the organization had done before being stopped:

For more than a decade, while receiving federal funds, the Salvation Army allegedly has been forcing the hungry to sit through sermons in order to receive the food they desperately need, and forcing their employees to be held to fundamentalist religious standards, standards that have come into question in the past when an Australian media relations director for the Salvation Army implied that gays and lesbians deserve death because that punishment is supposedly in line with scripture. The organization quickly apologized for the official's statement and asserted that it did not fit their Christian beliefs.

For decades, it's been charged that the Salvation Army has hidden behind its religious charitable status to get away with such actions, but this new settlement finally says that regardless of their religious status, they can no longer use public funding for proselytizing and discrimination.

Imagine if this handful of employees had not come forward and the government had continued funding these actions. Just imagine all the cities and organizations where employees have not come forward. Countless religious organizations receive taxpayer money. Looking for a cause to pursue? Ask yourself, how many organizations use this money unchecked to spread their religious message? How many are in your area?

Some states have even begun to fund private religious schools with taxpayer money. They do this through a voucher program that allows parents to choose where their tax dollars for education are directed, allowing religious parents to get their kids into expensive private schools by paying tuition with taxpayer money.

I highlighted this practice in a piece for AlterNet:

In January 2014 Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced a bill to the Senate titled Scholarships for Kids (S. 1968 /H.R. 4000). The bill is a nationwide voucher program that would turn 63 percent of public school education funds into private school vouchers. Now, Alexander's bill does not touch federal education money for subsidized school lunches, students with disabilities, and students in schools on federally impacted land or military bases, but the Republicans have that covered too. Sen. Tim Scott (RSC) introduced his bill, the Opportunity for Individuals and Communities through Education (CHOICE) Act, to expand educational opportunities for children with disabilities, children living on military bases, and children living in impoverished areas.

If you think that sounds too good to be true, it is. Scott's bill is a voucher system for those who need the funding most. Alexander's and Scott's bills combined would devastate the public school system. Together these two bills would turn all federal educational funding into vouchers and students living in poor, rural areas and students with disabilities would lose out.

Neither bill has yet been voted on; hopefully, they never will be. In Louisiana, a similar voucher system was enacted in 2012 that was supposed to help inner-city children leave their failing public schools and enter private religious ones. Why they don't just try to fix the public schools is beyond me, because the program was a joke. Governor Bobby Jindal ended up placing about 8,000 kids in these "better" schools, with disastrous results. Data from Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) testing showed that those students placed in the private schools scored drastically lower — 40 percent at or slightly above grade level — than the state average of 69 percent.

Louisiana schools found another use for this voucher program — discrimination. Blogger Lamar White looked into the discriminatory practices of the private schools that benefited from the system:

Private schools, after all, are prohibited from using race as a factor in admissions. But they're not prohibited from using religion or sexual orientation. And Louisiana's voucher program is funding schools that actively and purposely discriminate against children who are not members of their sponsoring church. In fact, in some cases, we're actually being asked to pay more to schools for tuition for students who don't belong to the school's sponsoring church than we pay for a student who does. We're subsidizing a parallel system of schools that discriminates against kids for being gay or being physically or mentally disabled (because private schools are not subject to the same standards with respect to disabled students as public schools are).