Zoo drops plans to partner with Creation Museum

CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Zoo has dropped a business arrangement with the nearby Creation Museum after it received numerous complaints about a joint Christmas promotion.

Officials at the museum expressed disappointment that their plans to offer a reduced price on a package of tickets to both attractions had ended after less than three days.

“I am … personally saddened that this organization I esteem so highly would find it necessary to back out of this relationship,” said Ken Ham, founder and president of the museum in Petersburg, Ky. “At the same time, I have learned that the zoo received hundreds of complaints from what appear to be some very intolerant people, and so I understand the zoo’s perspective.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer said zoo officials found themselves embroiled in a debate between creationists who support the museum and evolutionists who oppose it after agreeing to a deal that would reduce entry to the zoo’s Festival of Lights and the museum’s Bethlehem’s Blessings.

“It’s not about us endorsing them or them endorsing us,” Chad Yelton, a spokesman for the zoo, told the newspaper. “That wasn’t the intention of anything we were doing.”