Texas Mayor Defends “Jesus Welcomes You to Hawkins” Sign, Saying That Critics Would Also Oppose Superman

Last week, I posted about an 18-foot-wide sign that greets visitors to the city of Hawkins, Texas:

Mayor Will Rogers was defending the sign despite a letter of complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and his arguments are just getting more and more ridiculous.

His latest one was offered at last night’s city council meeting. Rogers argued that the sign should stay because Jesus is like Superman:

“What violation is it for someone to welcome you into a town? If you don’t believe that Jesus existed then he would be fiction,” explained Rogers. “If he’s fiction, and you want to remove his name from everything, then you have to remove every fiction name from across the country. That means we couldn’t say ‘Superman welcomes you to town.'”

Superman followers, of course, aren’t trying to make life worse for women and LGBT people, nor do lots of people believe he’s a real person with magical powers. (Though I suppose they both came back from the dead…)

It’s not the first time the comparison has been made, in any case.

The simplest solution is to just move the sign to private property. It would cost next to nothing and stop any potential lawsuit. The only reason to keep it in place is to remind visitors that Christianity is the only game in town. Which the Mayor has to know. Too bad he cares more about promoting his faith through the government than doing what’s right for the people of Hawkins.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)