Oklahoma Central University cancels Ken Ham speech after LGBT group objected
Ken Ham, founder of the popular Creation Museum and Ark Encounter attractions, has been booted from speaking at Oklahoma Central University next month after objections from a campus LGBT group.
Back in July, Ham organized a “take back the rainbow” campaign, from the gay pride movement, lighting up his life sized Ark with rainbow colors. LGBTQ activists were not pleased.
“Where do LGBT Christians fall in the equation of Christians taking back the rainbow from LGBT activists?” asked Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, a homosexual Guest Contributor writing for the Courier Journal, claiming Ham sows hate.
The writer added: “Ham perpetuates a false sense of fundamentalists’ own victimhood” and “LGBT folks were created in the image of God just like cisgender heterosexual folks. Nothing will change that reality, and Ham’s attempts to attack LGBT Christians will actually result in people thinking through the question of God’s love on their own.”
Paul Blair, pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, and who worked through a campus group to arrange to have Ken appear in Constitution Hall (and was successful initially), has agreed to let Ken speak instead at his church near the UCO campus on March 5.
Ken Ham
In his proposed talk at UCO, Ham would have discussed the two different worldviews and their starting points when interpreting scientific evidence, as he did in his evolution/creation debate with Bill Nye “The Science Guy” four years ago.
Ham noted: “Free speech in America is under increasing attack by some very intolerant people. In this case of discrimination, I find it highly ironic that after being booked to speak in the school’s Constitution Hall, our constitutional right to free speech and the free exercise of religion, guaranteed under the First Amendment, have been denied.”
Ham added: “A small but vocal group on campus put up a fuss about my talk and the university caved in, tearing up the contract and contradicting its policies of promoting ‘free inquiry’ and ‘inclusiveness’ on campus.”
Answers in Genesis has posted a web article with more details about the cancellation.
“Since the doors of our public university are closed, we will open our doors for interested students and members of our community to hear what Ken has to share,” says Blair. “I am greatly disappointed that a university that boasts of being ‘discrimination free’ on its website openly discriminates against the free speech rights of Christians on the campus.
“It’s another case where the First Amendment seems to exist everywhere except on college campuses,” declared Pastor Blair. “According to its Campus Expression Policy, UCO is committed to ‘fostering a learning environment where free inquiry and expression are encouraged’. But apparently that only applies to speech that echoes specific beliefs. The irony is, the groups promoting ‘tolerance’ are the most intolerant forces on campus.”
Ken Ham is president and founder of Answers in Genesis (AiG), an apologetics (i.e., Bible-defending) ministry based in northern Kentucky, near Cincinnati. In 2016 AiG opened the Ark Encounter, a one-of-a-kind Christian themed attraction with a massive Noah’s Ark in Williamstown, Ky., which draws up to 8,000 guests in a day. The Creation Museum, located west of the Cincinnati Airport, has welcomed well over 3.5 million visitors and has proved to be a major family attraction in the Midwest. For more information, visit www.answersingenesis.org.
