A debate is raging in the small city of Hondo, Texas, where atheist activists are asking officials to remove two signs that name the local area "God's country," with secularists calling the placards' presence on public property entirely "inappropriate."
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist group headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, sent a letter to the mayor of Hondo earlier this month on behalf of unnamed citizens who reached out to the organization to express concern over the signage, KSAT-TV reported.
Both signs, which appear on Highway 90, read, "This Is God's Country. Please Don't Drive Through It Like Hell." The city's official website also includes text at the top of its home page that proclaims, "This Is God's Country."
It's that message that the Freedom From Religion Foundation deems problematic, with the organization's co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, penning a June 15 letter to the city in which she called the signs "divisive religious displays."
"We write to encourage the city to find an alternative way to promote safe driving that doesn't also endorse a religious message," Gaylor wrote. "It is inappropriate for the City of Hondo to display religious signs that convey government preference for religion over nonreligion."
Dan Barker, Gaylor's husband and fellow co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, told KSAT-TV that, from a practical standpoint, any deity's mention in the same context would be seen as inappropriate, offering up the example of "This Is Vishnu's Country" to try to prove his point.
"It would be best if they just removed it, but the compromise could be, 'Drive safely. This is beautiful country,'" Barker told the outlet. "It's not 'God's country' because there is no God."
But Hondo Mayor James Danner has thus far not been willing to entertain requests to remove the signs, which have reportedly been on public property in some form since the 1930s.
"There’s no way in hell we're going to take those signs down," Danner said this week. "I think when they find out we received that letter, we'll have total support from the community to keep them."
At the heart of the matter is the accusation that the city of Hondo is showing a religious preference by invoking God's name on public property, with the Christian Post noting that there is certainly a debate among local residents over the issue.
But as Jacob Gershman of the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog noted, U.S. courts have "generally been more tolerant of generic theistic messages that favor religion over non-religion but don't endorse one particular faith." And in this case, some say that the generic mention of "God" might be entirely permissible.
Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert and a professor at UCLA School of Law, also made an intriguing distinction about the signage, telling Gershman that "it's pretty clearly a joke" — something that Volokh believes adds credence to the city's side of the argument.
If officials do refuse to remove the signs, the Freedom From Religion Foundation won't necessarily be pursuing legal action, with an attorney for the group admitting that the case falls into a bit of a gray area.
Take, for instance, the ongoing battle over the words "In God We Trust," which are printed on American currency and have repeatedly — and unsuccessfully thus far — been challenged in the courts.
Even the term "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has been upheld under the U.S. Constitution over the years, with activists turning to state constitutions in an attempt to pave the way toward removal. That tactic has also proven unsuccessful thus far.
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