State Highway Signs Pointing To Creation Museum Questioned

In Kentucky, as in other states, a tourist attraction that draws enough visitors can-- for a price-- have highway signs put up by the state indicating the highway exits that leads to the attraction. Cincinnati Post columnist Kevin Eigelbach yesterday questioned the propriety of Kentucky's erecting four of these signs directing visitors to Boone County, Kentucky's Creation Museum. Rules require that a committee of transportation and commerce officials consider applications for signs. They are available only for cultural, historical, recreational, agricultural, educational or entertainment sites. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said it is a "close call" whether the state's support of the museum violates the Constitution's Establishment Clause. At any rate he thought it was bad policy, saying: "It just seems foolish for a state to promote a kind of monument to ignorance anyway, and this certainly does that."