Tulsa, USA - A city board reversed direction on Thursday and rejected plans to add a creationist exhibit to the Tulsa Zoo.
Board members voted 3-1 against installing an exhibit on the origin of life from the Bible. The vote, made at a special meeting of the board, reversed a June 7 decision to add a Genesis story to the zoo.
Dale McNamara, who voted against the display at the June meeting and again on Thursday, told the packed house of onlookers that she carefully considered her vote.
"My 'no' vote was, on reflection, absolutely correct," she said.
As one of only nine "living museums" in the country, the Tulsa Zoo should develop displays that explain the cultural significance of animals, McNamara said. She said an elephant-like stone statue near the elephant exhibit fit within that mission.
The statue has been one of the key items in the fight over Genesis display. Tulsa resident Dan Hicks had argued for the creationism display as a balance to other religious items at the zoo.
Hicks, an architect, had agreed to pay for a Genesis exhibit and came to Thursday's meeting with a 5-by-3-foot plan for the display as he envisioned it.
Tulsa Park and Recreation Board Chairman Walter Helmerich said he felt board members had been deceived by Hicks. Meeting at the Tulsa Garden Center, Helmerich read into the record a 1995 agreement between Hicks and then-Mayor Susan Savage.
In the letter, Hicks said a sign near the zoo entrance noting that evolution was a scientific theory explaining the development of life was sufficient to meet his religious concerns over the zoo.
Consideration of the display was the sole item on the board's agenda. Board member Joseph Schulte called for the vote to drop the display.
"This seemed like the best thing to do," Schulte said. "Leave the zoo just as it is."
Current Mayor Bill LaFortune was the lone board member to back the planned display. He suggested that the board should form a committee to look at any religious symbols at the zoo and consider what to do with them. No action was taken on this suggestion.
The board's original decision to include a biblical story on the Earth's origin had divided residents and thrown Tulsa into the national spotlight. LaFortune had said before the meeting that he was aware of the criticism but he wanted to raise questions about religion in general at the zoo.
Residents had crowded into the meeting and signed up on a speakers list that stretched more than four pages. At the start of the meeting, however, Helmerich said there would be no public comment period.