The atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is doing everything it can to keep school children from visiting the Ark Encounter, a new attraction in Kentucky that features the life-sized replica of Noah's Ark.
The FRFF even sent letters to over 1,000 school districts in Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, telling them that sending students to the Ark Encounter is nothing short of allowing them to be subjected to religious indoctrination, according to the Lexington Herald Leader.
"That would be completely inappropriate," FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said of the field trips to the Ark. "This is an attempt to proselytise children. The public school is to educate, not indoctrinate."
In response to the FRFF letter, Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham announced that school children visiting the Ark Encounter need to pay only a $1 entrance fee each for the duration of this year.
Ham writes on his blog that he is not afraid to stand up against "FFRF bullies" who want to keep Americans from enjoying freedom of religion.
"On the basis of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, public schools are absolutely free to take students on field trips (with appropriate parental permissions) to facilities like the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, provided they are for historical, recreational, or educational purposes," Ham writes.
He adds that FFRF has "no right (and no legal basis whatsoever) to intimidate government-run schools as they are trying to do in this letter sent to more than 1,000 schools."
Donald Ruberg, an attorney for the Grant County Schools, also does not agree with the FRFF's position. "I think they are grossly overstating their case," he says. "That's not a correct interpretation of the law, in my opinion."
Kentucky Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt agrees with him. He believes field trips should be "a direct extension of classroom learning" at all times, and need not be directly related to the school curriculum.
