The Washington Post

June 11, 2005 Saturday
Final Edition

SECTION: Metro; B09

LENGTH: 699 words

HEADLINE: In Brief

BODY:

Faced with a citizen's complaint about a five-foot elephant statue depicting Ganesha, the Hindu god of success, the Tulsa Zoo plans to add an exhibit including the biblical account of creation.

Ross Weller, administration manager for the Tulsa Park and Recreation Department, said the new exhibit will feature the Bible story as well as "the predominant creation stories from other cultures."

Asked what those other cultural representations would be, Weller said, "It's going to take some research on the zoo staff's part to try and discover."

The controversy erupted after Tulsa resident and Christian activist Dan Hicks told the board that oversees the zoo that the 10-year-old elephant exhibit was religious, not educational.

After a lengthy discussion Tuesday that drew comments from 27 speakers, the board voted 3 to 1 to approve the creation exhibit.

"I think this decision by the Park and Recreation Board is a victory for the citizens of Tulsa because the majority view of creation is now going to be represented at the Tulsa Zoo," Hicks told the Daily Oklahoman. "To present both sides of the story, that's education. We certainly hope the Tulsa Zoo is interested in education."

The Washington-based American Humanist Association disagrees and said the new biblical exhibit would violate the First Amendment ban on government promotion of religion.

"There is no comparison between what this deliberate religious display conveys to impressionable children and existing cultural religious references at the zoo," the association's executive director, Tony Hileman, said in a statement.

Hicks first complained about a zoo exhibit showing a time line of world history through scientific theory, Weller said. The new creation exhibit will be next to that display, he said.

Another concern for critics was a large marble globe at the zoo entrance, which they said evoked American Indian religion with its message: "The earth is our mother, the sky is our father."

-- Religion News Service