Weep for poor persecuted Kent Hovind. They’ve shut down Dinosaur Adventure Land.
County commissioners showed no sympathy to members of the Creation Science Evangelism ministry who spoke out Thursday night at a commission meeting about the county’s actions.
“Scripture also says ‘Render unto Caesar what Caesar demands.’ And right now, Caesar demands a building permit,” County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead said.
On the other hand, these guys are criminal con-artists and scum, so hold back those tears.
Legal questions are nothing new for Dinosaur Adventure Land and the leaders of the church group that operates it:
- In 2004, The Internal Revenue Service raided Hovind’s home and businesses. Agents said Hovind had failed to pay taxes. That case is pending, and federal attorneys declined to comment about it.
- While the building permit case was in court, the ownership of the theme park was transferred to Stoll, who resides in Washington State, according to court papers. Stoll has been investigated at least twice by federal authorities, court records show.
Last year, the U.S. attorney in Seattle filed a lawsuit against Stoll, charging him with promoting a scheme encouraging people to avoid paying taxes by claiming to be religious entities, according to news reports.
A federal judge ruled against Stoll, ordering him to stop the practices. Stoll said Thursday that he doesn’t recognize the ruling because he was never properly served with court papers.
(via God is for Suckers)
And, in a nutshell, this is why not taxing “religious entities” is such a horrible idea.
Jesus comes right out and tells ’em to render unto Caesar. ‘Bout time these self-righteous parasites started rendering.
(Though I must admit to a twinge of sorrow at not being able to treat my offspring to a fun-filled day at Dinosaur Adventure Land…)
“Scripture also says ‘Render unto Caesar what Caesar demands.’ And right now, Caesar demands a building permit,” County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead said.
Ha ha ha! I love it.
“Scripture also says ‘Render unto Caesar what Caesar demands.’ And right now, Caesar demands a building permit,” County Commission Chairman Mike Whitehead said.
That dude friggin’ rules.
We don’t need to just tax “religious entities”, we need to tax the everloving shit out of them.
Naah, don’t tax them… that would be construed as punishment, and those lunatics thrive on it. Want to really get them where it hurts? Start a church welfare program. Then the government will get a say in what’s done with the money, which, it will be assumed, is everything from feeding the hungry to paying for the teen club’s ski vacation.
Way off topic, but not taxing churches also has other sad unintended consequences. In Buffalo, and I’m sure in other northern cities, there are are dozens of churches and cathedrals that have been abandoned and left to rot as thier white parishoners fled to the suburbs. Just google some urban exploration sites and you’ll see – they do provide a nice target for urban explorers…
Anyway, the churches abandon them to “demolition by neglect” because they don’t have to pay taxes on their properties. In some cases it’s a sad loss of a city’s beautiful architectural heritage, but even if you don’t value the churches for that, having huge hulking abandoned buildings every couple of blocks doesn’t help a neighborhood’s attempts to revive itself.
Har! “Right now, Caesar demands a building permit.” That is classic!
I thought this was pretty old news. I distinctly remember seeing that “Caesar demands a building permit” quote, probably at the Panda’s Thumb.
I thought this was pretty old news. I distinctly remember seeing that “Caesar demands a building permit” quote, probably at the Panda’s Thumb.
I think the difference is that then they were just threatening to shut down Dinosaur Adventure Land, and evidently now they really have.
From Kent Hovind’s blog:
There is a May 9 at 11 am is the hearing for Judge Michael Allen to reconsider his order to close the buildings. There are at least 35 serious problems with his order. If he does not reverse it and we appeal over his head and win, it will sure look bad on his record and may end his career as judge. Glen Stoll’s Abatement filed last week in this case points out all the flaws in his order. I will post it as soon as I can.
Please pray that God will turn his heart and that he will order the county to mediation again and open the buildings. Everyone knows the issue is not health or safety. The buildings have been inspected 5 times. The only issue is control over God’s church.
We have located a camp to begin another DAL and will be traveling to see it for the 3rd time tomorrow. If all works out we will need a bunch of money and work from those interested in seeing a Creation Camp where we can train the next generation of students to terrorize, I mean, correct the mistakes teachers bring up in public school classes across the world.
Note, there is only one comment on this and only few on most of the others. I e-mailed this to the Escambia District office.
I hope “Dr.” Hovind realizes it is not a good idea to post threats against prosecutors and judges.
There should be little difference caused by the withdrawal of tax exemption from the churches: Business income taxation is of profits and business property taxes tax only accumulated assets. To the extent that an organization produces profits or accumulates property, it’s not doing religion. Therefore, any church doing religion would not be taxable, except to the extent of its non-religious activities. Seems simple enough to me.
We have located a camp to begin another DAL and will be traveling to see it for the 3rd time tomorrow. If all works out we will need a bunch of money and work…
What do you bet he doesn’t seek permits for this location, either?
Like father, like son:
Similarly there must be a corelation between teaching creationism and evading taxes or neglecting to get building permits.
“He cited statistics which illustrate that since evolution became the mainstay in scientific teaching in the public schools in the early 1960s, things such as premarital sex, unwed births, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), divorce and other negative behaviors are up dramatically. One of the most striking figures was a 2,300% increase in child abuse. The line graphs showing a sharp increase in all these areas beginning in the early 1960s was compelling.”
Oh, come on. You think those kids are all actually LEARNING what they teach in school and internalizing it to that extent? Even if there were a link between knowing how the world works and evolution (which there isn’t), nobody would really be paying enough attention in school for it to have an effect.
And again I can’t type. Sheesh. That was supposed to be a link between knowing how the world works and those “negative behaviors”.
I totally agree with the judge. If you want to build an actual church, temple, mosque or whatever, you need to get a building permit first. No exceptions. I simply don’t know what Hovind and company are thinking, but hiding behind the “persecution” line when there is no persecution evident in the slightest is foolish and it only hurts true claims of persecution (e.g. that former Muslim who had to flee to Italy recently).
And this really is a great line: “Scripture also says ‘Render unto Caesar what Caesar demands.’ And right now, Caesar demands a building permit.”
You know, every time I hear one of these stories about Kent Hovind vs. The Government, I keep having these visions of Waco, but with melting fiberglass dinosaurs thrown in. I’m pretty sure that lunatic is going to go too far one of these days, and that isn’t going to end well.
Dr Dino has cheap plywood dinosaurs. It’s Answers in Genesis that has gone upscale with fiberglass.
All I can say is:
“sic transit gloria mundi”,
but I suspect the fundies won’t get the joke.