A religious dispute with political overtones is making monkeys of a well-intentioned but misguided public zoo board in Tulsa, Okla.

The board, which includes the mayor, has decided that the Genesis account of creation should be represented by a zoo display. After receiving a barrage of complaints, the board revised that plan. Now there will be “six or seven” creation stories, thereby ensuring a variety of creation viewpoints are expressed.

But why just six or seven? A quick search of the Web reveals that there are hundreds of creation stories. Several Web sites are devoted to nothing but recounting various ethnic and religious creation stories.

Some stories are rare and exotic, like the Inuit story of the giant girl slashed by giants with knives. As her fingertips fell, fish and animals were created. Some stories live on only in ethnic literature, like the giant cow creator god once worshipped by the fearsome Norsemen.

Perhaps, in Tulsa, the zoo should just stick with the creation story accepted by the founders: A water beetle was sent beneath the seas to explore, setting of an expansion of sea mud that formed the Earth. The animals above the sea attached the land to the sky with four strings. The animals then created the sun and set it on its path. Neither men nor God get much attention in the Cherokee native American story of the Earth’s creation.

Of course, we could just pick the dominate religion practiced in Tulsa, and teach that story in schools and zoo displays. But, there’s just something heavy-handed and unfair about that approach, and it is bound to offend.

The point, perhaps, is that all creation stories fit within the context of a particular religious tradition. Outside that context, or outside the circle of believers, they mean something else. Or, perhaps, they mean nothing at all.

That’s a problem in an increasingly ethnic, multicultural society.

The evolution “story” is different. Its broad outline is widely accepted by scientists of many faiths and in many lands. It is supported by years of scientific inquiry and physical evidence. And, most important, it is always subject to change as new evidence and new technology lead to new insights.

There is a place for inspirational stories, but it clearly isn’t the public zoo.