Bush’s Faith-Based Parks

A day after the PEER press release, Planet Out, an online magazine reported that the “story had changed” dramatically.  NPS Chief of Public Affairs, David Barna, assured Winne Stachelberg, the political director at the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group, that footage of gay rights demonstrations would not be removed from presentations at the Lincoln Memorial. “It sounds as if the park service is getting pressure from right-wing extremists groups to drop images of the gay community and add other images,” Stachelberg told Planet Out. 

The genesis of the current NPS controversy lies with a letter written last February by Kansas Republican Congressperson Todd Tiahrt. In the letter addressed to the NPS, Tiahrt “objected to the portions of the video that depict gays and a National Abortion Rights League rally,” Bill Line, a spokesperson for the National Park Service told Planet Out. Currently, Tiahrt is “in discussion” with the park service about adding scenes with the Promise Keepers march. 

The alleged directive was the latest in a series of moves by the NPS to cater to the demands of the president’s conservative Christian constituency. In July, PEER reports, NPS Deputy Director Murphy “ordered the Grand Canyon National Park to return three bronze plaques bearing biblical verses to public viewing areas on the Canyon’s South Rim.” The plaques were made and donated by the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Phoenix, who live in a convent called Cannan in the Desert. 

According to PEER, “Murphy overruled the park superintendent who had directed the plaques’ removal based on legal advice from the Interior Department that the religious displays violated the First Amendment. In a letter to the Evangelical Sisterhood, Murphy apologized for ‘any intrusion resulting from’ the temporary removal of the plaques quoting Psalms 68:4, 66:4, and 104:24 and pledged ‘further legal analysis and policy review’ before any new action is taken.” 

Early this fall, the Park Service also approved a creationist text, Grand Canyon: A Different View, for sale in park bookstores and museums. The book’s editor, Tom Vail, writes: “For years, as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years. Then I met the Lord. Now, I have a different view of the Canyon, which, according to the Biblical time scale, can’t possibly be more than about a few thousand years old.” The 104-page book contains essays and observations from 23 “creation scientists and theologians.” PEER points out, “Park Service leadership has blocked publication of guidance for park rangers and other interpretative staff that labeled creationism as lacking any scientific basis.” 

In a related legal battle, the Park Service is fighting “to continue displaying an 8-foot-tall cross, planted atop a 30-foot-high rock outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve in California,” PEER reports. A suit to force the removal of the cross, is now pending before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

“The Park Service leadership now caters exclusively to conservative Christian fundamentalist groups,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “The Bush administration appears to be sponsoring a program of faith-based parks.” 

“In 1983, Wallace Stenger wrote, ‘National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.’ Twenty years later, National Parks have lost most of what once made them special. They are quickly coming to reflect the corporate, commercial, and pro-special interest values of the Bush administration at its absolute worst,” said Scott Silver, executive director of Wild Wilderness.