Blogswarn Against Theocracy - Kentucky Edition

Today begins Blog Against Theocracy's weekend Blogswarm for the Separation of Church and State.

Xian easter is, of course, the perfect time to rant and inveigh against theocracy as easter has always been the theocracy's favorite excuse for torturing, murdering, banishing and generally refusing to tolerate everyone who does not toe the theocratic line.

Here in the Bluegrass State - home of your 2012 NCAA Men's Basketball Champion (for the eighth time, ahem) University of Kentucky Wildcats - theocracy begins with a starvation budget that has not an extra dime for struggling schools but 2 million bucks for our very own Road to Freakazoid Nowhere.

A nonprofit group that advocates for the separation of church and state raised questions Wednesday about the legislature’s plan to spend $2 million on road improvements near the proposed Ark Encounter theme park in Grant County.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington D.C. nonprofit, is protesting the legislature’s decision to include $2 million for improvements to KY 36, a project included in road budgets proposed by Gov. Steve Beshear and approved by the House and Senate.

The $2 million would be used to purchase right-of-way and pre-construction work on an interchange with I-75.

Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said the Kentucky Constitution bans the use of taxpayer dollars to support religion. Section 5 of the Constitution says taxpayers may not be forced to “contribute to the erection or maintenance” of any place of worship.

Chuck Wolfe, a spokesman for the Transportation Cabinet, said the state is paying for improvements to the interchange because there are concerns about increased traffic.

“The Transportation Cabinet’s interest in enlarging the interchange is to prevent traffic from backing up onto I-75, which would be a significant hazard,” Wolfe said. “The reason for great increases in traffic is immaterial.”

Plans for opening Ark Encounter, a Biblical-themed park, have repeatedly been delayed because of problems with fundraising. Plans for the Ark Encounter include a life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark, a Tower of Babel, petting zoos and an assortment of Biblical-themed exhibits.

Repug-lite Governor Steve Cowardly Waste of Oxygen Beshear first awarded these freakazoid con artists $40 million in state tax credits a year ago. But those who shrugged it off as an election-year pander (Beshear won re-election in a landslide in November) can't explain the post-election highway gift.

Face it, Beshear apologists: Stevie-boy is literally taking food from the mouths of children to build a highway to a freakazoid con game, and he's doing it not to gain votes he doesn't need anymore, but because he thinks that's an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars.

In this year of states competing to see which can pass the most blatantly un-constitutional, anti-democratic, un-American bullshit legislation of them all, this simple budget measure makes the Final Four.