CREATED EARTH DAY

Creationist booted from Earth Day Celebration

NICEVILLE - Organizers of a local Earth Day event kicked out a creationism group and its erosion display for distributing written material and videos with religious messages.

The group, Creation Science Evangelism, was asked to leave about noon Sunday shortly after the three-day Community Earth Day 2002 celebration began in this Panhandle city.

''It doesn't fit with our theme and what we're trying to do out here,'' said Mike Spaits, Earth Day media coordinator and an environmental spokesman for Eglin Air Force Base, which helped organize the event.

The exhibit was designed to show erosion can happen quickly, something creationists say supports their view that Earth is much younger than determined by geologists and other scientists.

Creationists dispute scientific evidence that Earth and its life evolved over millions of years. They say God created them in their present forms a few thousand years ago.

The display was very scientific and didn't mention God, said Maury Adkins, public relations director for Creation Science Evangelism.

''We're not proselytizing,'' he said. ''There was nothing objectionable about it.''

Spaits said the group had been told not to distribute written matter and sell videos of a religious nature.

Organizers, including the base, schools, businesses and the city, last week had questioned the display, consisting mainly of water and sand in a large metal tub. It was permitted after the group demonstrated the exhibit and promised to keep it nonreligious.

Adkins said the creationists would seek a federal civil rights investigation on grounds their right to religious expression had been violated.

-         The Associated Press
From the Gainesville Sun, "Around the region", April 23, 2002
http://www.sunone.com/