San Diego council rejects creation museum despite compliance efforts

The San Diego Museum Council once again denied membership to the Creation and Earth History Museum in Santee, Calif., earlier this month. The museum spent close to two years trying to satisfy the council’s requirements, only to be rejected without explanation.

The Creation and Earth History Museum features scientific evidence for the young-earth theory of creation, a dinosaur exhibit, and a petting zoo. In operation since 1992, the museum applied for membership to the San Diego Museum Council in 2013. At that time, council members asked museum president Tom Cantor why he wanted to join the council, which has about 45 members such as the San Diego Air & Space Museum, the California Surf Museum, and the Museum of Making Music.

“We told them that the council was not balanced in their promotion of origins without inclusion of the opposing view of creation,” Cantor said. “We told them that we would be a good, active member of the council even though we were not in agreement with the view that opposes creation.”

A letter dated Nov. 13, 2013, stated the council rejected the Creation and Earth History Museum for not meeting professional standards, including issues with the museum’s animal collection policy, animal care management system, and a potential conflict of interest with a paid employee, museum curator Jayson Payne, sitting on the museum’s board. Payne was immediately removed from the board. “That was the easy one,” he said.

“The letter recommended we look to national standards from the American Alliance of Museums, ” Payne told me. “Even though that is a higher standard than the San Diego Museum Council requires [for membership], I went ahead and bought all the books and went through them. We went above and beyond to ensure compliance.”

The letter noted several of the committee members who visited the museum had positive observations and encouraged the museum to reapply for membership.

Payne said the museum spent months on little things like ensuring each animal had an individual care sheet, gathering records for the birth, death and breeding of animals, and writing a policy for what to do if a visitor got sick from an animal. The museum also consulted the well-respected Children’s Discovery Museum to ensure it provided the animals first-class care.

In July, six members of the council visited the museum for an audit and re-inspection.

“They agreed we’d done an amazing job,” Payne said, “Some even commented, ‘This is a lot nicer than a lot of the museums we deal with.’”

But Sept. 3, Payne received a letter from the museum council’s executive director, Theresa Kosen, stating that although a committee had approved his application, the creation museum did not get a majority vote from the council’s members. When Payne asked for a record of the vote via email, Kosen responded by saying the council was “under no obligation to share the results beyond the fact that the application did not receive a simple majority of the voting members.” Council board president Kerri Fox told KPBS the group had changed its policy and would no longer release vote tallies.

Payne said he wasn’t surprised by the vote’s outcome.

“We did everything we were supposed to do. So why didn't we get the votes? Prejudice against the Lord Jesus Christ is what it comes down to,” he said.

The museum plans to reapply next year, and each year thereafter if needed, possibly using the new category of associate membership. Unlike full membership museums, associate membership museums have no voting rights, according to Payne.