CURRENT MOON

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Bible Park Finally Runs Into Trouble -- Maybe


Michelle Willard, of the Murfreesboro Post has been staying on top of the xianists' plans to use tax dollars to build, I am not making this up, a bible theme park. One can only hope that someone in Rutherford County is waking up to the size of the legal bills they're going to pay if they approve this abomination.

Bible Park stumbles over second hurdle in approval process
By MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer – April 3, 2008 – 6:00 pm

Representatives from Bible Park USA failed to convince Rutherford County Future Development Committee its plans meet the requirements for a Conditional Use Permit.

FDC met Thursday afternoon to review the land use plan and Conditional Use Permit request of SafeHarbor, LLC to develop a proposed non-denominational Biblically based theme park in the Blackman Community.

The committee, in a tie vote, failed to [endorse?] the request.

“What happens now is it goes on to the Planning Commission with no recommendation,” explained Doug Demosi, county planning department executive director.

Following three hours of explanaitons by SafeHarbor officials and public comment by some 15 citizens, Rutherford County Commissioner and FDC member Steve Sandlin’smade a motion to deny the request. The motion garnered a tie vote with Sandlin, Bob Farris and Steve Barnes voting in favor to deny.

Voting against Sandlin's motion, and therefore to approve the request, were Allen Swader, Talmadge Gilley and Mike Kusch.

Sandlin based his motion to deny primarily because the proposed park does not mesh with the county’s land use plan for the Blackman Community, which calls for mainly residential development mixed with low density commerial.

He also cited public concerns about traffic and public opinion against the park. Almost 100 people turned up to speak either for or against the park.

“We’re about double against it than for it,” Sandlin said.

Committee member Bob Farris also requested an opinion from Tennessee Attorney General regarding the use of county-based Tax Increment Financing and possible First Amendment separation of church and state conflicts with the Bible-based park.

The permit request and plan now go to the full Rutherford County Planning Commission with no recommendation at its Monday, April 14 meeting.


Aren't there any Pagans in Tennessee who can show up for the April 14th meeting?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

and do what?
in a part of the world where one of the two questions people aske upon meeting is what church do you go to and the other is who you are related to, how does the pagan objection fit in?

¡El Gato Negro! said...

Look at it this way:

The pipples at those meetings could get an entirely new set of answers to one of their two questions, and the new participants could offer up some alternate myths that are just as deserving of state-approved funding.

It's how-joo-say "a win-win", no?

Anonymous said...

oh, i was also going to say, that a benefit of the above has been that is that i have had more real conversations about religion and spirituality with xians here than other parts of the country, and have not encountered the rabid or any real efforts in conversion here as oppose to california or new york or new jersey.
in the book put out by the secretary of the state, in the blurby part about each state senator, representative, and many other state officials, almost all of them list a church affiliation, and it is the first item listed by format.

Anonymous said...

plus the real religion-in that what decisions come down to-and publically admitted to at many levels-is private property rights and business and money and development.

Irene said...

I'm about 90% atheist and I would have showed up at this meeting and have protested against it, but alas, I live in the Netherlands and we very luckily do not have such a weird problem here.

Anonymous said...

El Gato: Purrrrr!

Another Anonymous

shrimplate said...

Who is this Jesus person, and why does he keep talking about me?!