Tulsa Board Rejects Plan to Add Creationist Exhibit to Zoo

July 7, 2005

Source: The Washington Post

Wire Service: AP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070702015.html

On July 7, 2005 the Associated Press reported, "A city board reversed direction on Thursday and rejected plans to add a creationist exhibit to the Tulsa Zoo.

Board members voted 3-1 against installing an exhibit on the origin of life from the Bible. The vote, made at a special meeting of the board, reversed a June 7 decision to add a Genesis story to the zoo...

Current Mayor Bill LaFortune was the lone board member to back the planned display... The board's original decision to include a biblical story on the Earth's origin had divided residents and thrown Tulsa into the national spotlight... [Dan Hicks, Tulsa resident and architect who had agreed to pay for the creationist display] said he was only one of 300 people interested in bringing the creationist exhibit to the zoo. Following Thursday's vote, Hicks said those 300 would have to decide what to do next but there would be appeals to the mayor.

In the meantime, the zoo continues to have a representation of a Hindu god, a globe sculpture that promotes pantheism and a Maasai display that contains the equivalent of posting Scripture, Hicks said. Presenting this material represented an affront to the majority Christian population of Tulsa, he said."