Source: ChannelOklahoma.com

Wire Service: AP

http://www.channeloklahoma.com/news/4649589/detail.html

On June 24, 2005 the Associated Press reported, "A recently formed group has started circulating a petition asking [Tulsa's] Park and Recreation Board to reverse its June 7 decision authorizing a biblical creation story exhibit at the Tulsa zoo.

Friends of Religion and Science passed out copies of the petition during a Thursday news conference at Rudisill North Regional Library attended by representatives of the Tulsa Interfaith Alliance, the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministries and Oklahoma Educators for Science Education... [Supporters of the petition] said the park board, by ordering creation story exhibits at the zoo, put public officials in the position of making decisions about theology... Mayor Bill LaFortune and his chief of staff, Clay Bird, came in for most of the group's criticism.

'If the mayor hadn't been behind this, we don't think it would have happened,' [Brian Cross, an Oklahoma State University graduate student and supporter of the petition] said.

LaFortune said he had no intention of changing his mind. He again agreed with those who believe the zoo already contains religious symbols... Speakers at the news conference said the display favored by the park board goes beyond education and instruction about foreign cultures and crosses into the realm of promoting specific theologies."