From the Courier-Journal article:
And one of the group's attorneys, James Parsons, sent a letter to the cabinet on Monday arguing that the state's demands on hiring policies violate state and federal law.
"If you insist on the newly imposed condition... it will amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and my client will have no choice but to seek redress in federal court," Parsons wrote.
The letter describes Ark Encounter as an "overtly religious entity" that is "clearly allowed" under state and federal law to use religious criteria in hiring. It also argues that the state's conditions will impose a burden on the freedom of religion without a compelling government interest.
I think before you can claim that the hiring requirements are "a burden on the freedom of religion," you need to decide whether you're a religion exempt from the requirements, or a for-profit business that is not. The weasel-word framing of Ark Encounter (a for-profit LLC)* as an "overtly religious entity" just strikes me as an attempt to eat their cake and have it too- they avoid saying outright "church" or "religion," which would mean no state support (by rebates of taxes that you would only collect from customers, then pay to the state, if you were a business in the first place), but still claim the privilege of a church to hire only the religious (of their faith).
*It's interesting the way the whole thing is set up- Ark Encounter itself is a for-profit LLC owned by a non-profit 501 (c)(3), Crosswater Canyon, which is, in turn, controlled by Answers In Genesis. Why such a complicated structure? This is from
Exhibit 5 (in a PDF file) in a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation to the IRS asking them to investigate Ham's shenanigans- it's a screen capture from Ark Encounter's website, answering the question "Why is the project so big, and why is an LLC involved?":
The for-profit LLC structure also allows the Ark Encounter to be eligible for various economic development incentives that would not have been available with a non-profit structure.
(It's interesting that, if you go to Ark Encounter's website today,
that same question no longer has the same answer as in FFRF's screen-capture; something to hide, Hammy?)
IOW, Ham wants the benefits of law, in setting up a structure that allows him the "various economic development incentives that would not have been available with a non-profit structure"- the money to build and run the thing- but also wants to avoid the strictures of the same law that address the staffing of it. He needs the money he can't get as a church, but wants to run it as one.
And it's persecution of his freedom of religion when he can't have it both ways.
