Creationism controversy rocks Grand Canyon National Park

Parks & Recreation, March, 2004

This just might be the year for the Grand Canyon National Park, if the U.S. Department of Interior Solicitor's Office releases its interpretation of the First Amendment's separation between church and state clause. Last year, the park received national attention because of three posted plaques with biblical inscriptions, and a book sold at the park's gift shop that spouts a Creationist view about the Grand Canyon.

"When it comes to the separation of church and state--it's not something we do every day," says Dave Barna, chief of public affairs for the National Park Service (NPS).

According to Grand Canyon National Park Public Affairs Officer Maureen Oltrogge, in February 2003, a member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had visited the park earlier and sent an e-mail to its superintendent, Joseph Alston, questioning the three plaques, which are hitched to different scenic sections of the canyon. The plaques have Psalms from the Bible inscribed individually on them, and were donated by the Arizona-based Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary.

Alston then consulted with the National Park Services' regional director in Denver, Colo., and its regional counsel, before making the decision to take down the plaques in early July.

While the presence of the plaques caused little drama in the last 30 years since they were installed, their omission raised such fervor among advocates from both sides that NPS Deputy Director Donald Murphy requested the plaques be reinstalled until a more formal decision could be made. By late July the plaques were back in their respective locations. "We're back to status quo," Barna says.

Around the same time, the canyon's bookstore received the first copies of a new book, "Grand Canyon: A Different View," by Tom Vail, who includes panoramic views of the canyon along with poems and statements that promote the theory that the canyon was created in a couple of days.

Barna says that while the book may be construed as a temporary religious item that is allowed within NPS's guidelines of free expression, the plaques are an example of a permanent religious structure--something that was outlawed during a revision of the NPS's codes in the 1980s.

"We would not today be able to put in a permanent religious structure," Barna says. But structures like the plaques, Yosemite National Park's chapel and Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming are permanent religious structures that were installed years before the code revisions.

So in October 2003, Barna says his department made a formal request to the Department of the Interior (DOI) to decide on whether the plaques and the book can stay. At press time, there was no official release date on the decision.