US Lawmaker Trolls Stephen Hawking In Tweet Shortly After His Death

In the ultimate 'I'm sorry you feel that way' pass-agg tweet, a US lawmaker has chosen the death of Stephen Hawking to troll a dead man. Stay classy.

Briscoe Cain is an attorney from Harris County in Texas and a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives. He was elected last year.

However, he courted controversy this week with a tweet in the aftermath of the death of physicist Stephen Hawking.

Hawking was a noted atheist, often arguing against the existence of God. In 2010's The Grand Design, Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow wrote: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

During his lifetime, Hawking said it was understandable to have believed in God in previous years, before humans had a thorough understanding of science, which he now felt offered a 'more convincing' explanation when it came to explaining the origins of life.

Many other fundamentalist organisations and individuals used Hawking's death to criticise his atheism, including the controversial Westboro Baptist Church.

However, fellow Republican lawmaker Poncho Nevarez was one of a number of people to criticise Cain publicly.

Cain is a successful lawyer, serving clients in cases about religion and abortion. In December 2015 he was successful in defending the religious freedom of Beaumont police officers, after city authorities banned them from having Bible study during lunch breaks.

In 2017, he was voted 'most conservative' legislator in the Texas house by a political science fellow at Rice University.

After being invited to speak at an event at Texas Southern University in October 2017, Cain was prevented from attending by protesters, who claimed he 'has ties to the Alt-Right and is anti-LGBT'. He later said he intended to sue the school and its president for infringing upon his First Amendment Rights.

Topics: Science, religion, US News, USA, Stephen Hawking

Ronan O'Shea

Ronan J O'Shea is a freelance journalist from London who has written for titles including LADbible, Headspace, The Independent, National Geographic Traveller and New York Post. Contact him at [email protected].