Before becoming U.S. House Speaker, Mike Johnson successfully represented Answers in Genesis in a federal lawsuit against Kentucky. The state had withdrawn an $18 million tax incentive for the Ark Encounter in 2014, citing its religious ministry mission. In 2016, U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove ruled the exclusion violated the First Amendment. Kentucky later paid $190,000 in legal fees and spent millions on road improvements for the attraction.
Claims
- ▪Governor Steve Beshear's administration withdrew the tax incentive offer in 2014, claiming Answers in Genesis changed the Ark Encounter's mission from a tourist attraction to a religious ministry
- ▪Kentucky invested millions of dollars in road construction to improve access to the Ark Encounter attraction in Grant County
- ▪The Ark Encounter, a 510-foot wooden replica of the biblical Noah's Ark, opened in Kentucky in 2016
- ▪Kentucky agreed to pay Answers in Genesis $190,000 in legal fees in connection with the tax incentive lawsuit
- ▪U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove ruled in 2016 that Kentucky's exclusion of the Ark Encounter from the tourism tax incentive based on its religious purpose violated the First Amendment
- ▪Mike Johnson served as CEO and chief counsel of Freedom Guard, a Louisiana public interest law firm that represented Answers in Genesis in its lawsuit against Kentucky
- ▪Answers in Genesis is an apologetics Christian ministry that uses science to defend a literal interpretation of the Bible
- ▪The Kentucky tourism cabinet initially awarded the Ark Encounter project a sales-tax rebate worth up to $18 million
- ▪The 2016 federal court ruling affirmed that the U.S. Constitution does not permit a state to show hostility towards religion
- ▪Prior to becoming U.S. House Speaker, Mike Johnson successfully represented Answers in Genesis in a lawsuit against Kentucky to regain tax incentives for the Ark Encounter
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