The Interior Department is facing a lawsuit from a Christian geologist who claims he was not allowed to collect rocks from Grand Canyon National Park because of his creationist beliefs.
In the suit filed earlier this month, the Australian geologist, Andrew Snelling, says that religious discrimination was behind the National Park Service's (NRS's) decision to deny him a permit to gather samples from four locations in the park.
Snelling had hoped to gather the rocks to support the creationist belief that a global flood about 4,300 years ago was responsible for rock layers and fossil deposits around the world.
NPS's actions "demonstrate animus towards the religious viewpoints of Dr. Snelling," the complaint alleges, "and violate Dr. Snelling's free exercise rights by imposing inappropriate and unnecessary religious tests to his access to the park."
The lawsuit was filed May 9 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. NPS has yet to respond to the allegations.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29 2017, @01:38PM
Why? Because for every loud mouthed holier than thou holy rolling bible thumper who vehemently sticks to their dogma, there are 3 or 4 quieter sitting on the fence I don't really believe all of this and I'm largely doing this because my parents did this types that might actually listen. This man whom I will refuse to call a scientist is obviously one of the dogmatic ones. Those who are completely deluded are lost, but not all are not equally deluded and can change with enough of the right circumstances. No there are not some magical words to say to make the extremely devout instantly disavow their beliefs, but the fence sitters are the ones we need to do the kind of things like a simultaneous peer review. I'd say if one person where to change their thinking then it's with it. We can "save" the fence sitters from "being saved"