AiG Museum Opponent Makes Startling Admission!

Humanist activist Ed Kagin, an attorney who originally led the opposition to AiG’s Creation Museum in the Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati area (USA), made a remarkable admission to the Kentucky Post in a front-page feature story (www.kypost.com/news/kagan081200.html, August 12^th).

Mr. Kagin admitted what so many in the local community have already known: his vehement opposition to our future Creation Museum had everything to do with his disgust regarding the views that the future Bible-defending museum will present, and was not over land/zoning concerns at all.

The Post article (not surprisingly) revealed that not only does Mr. Kagin oppose the “injection of religion in public life,” but that he also fights it in the private sector. With Answers in Genesis, he was trying to censor a private, nonprofit ministry that will be building a museum on private property using private funds. Many of his actions have shown a blatant disregard of AiG’s constitutional guarantee of freedom of religious expression, quite startling given Mr. Kagin’s civil liberties background.

Denied rezoning approval by Boone County commissioners four years ago on a previous piece of property (although the county’s planning commission and professional staff recommended approval), AiG found a second parcel at a much more favorable location (facing I-275, and west of the major Cincinnati airport). Thankfully, clear-minded and new “by-the-book” commissioners this time granted zoning approval for the second parcel a few months ago, and we are happy to report that ground-breaking for the museum should occur in March 2001.

As the former president of the organization called the Free Inquiry Group, Mr. Kagin’s displays of intolerance and attempts at censorship belie the open-mindedness and freedom of expression suggested by the group’s very name: Free Inquiry. As a lawyer involved in numerous civil liberties cases, Mr. Kagin should know better than to attempt to trample on AiG’s constitutional freedom of expression.

Mr. Kagin’s ongoing efforts to deny free speech for religious groups, coupled with the often perverse content found on his website, suggests that he is not the upright citizen described by the local circuit judge cited by the Post.