Popular scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t often get outwardly political, but when he does it’s almost always controversial.

Earlier this week, Tyson offered his thoughts on Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, telling the Daily Beast that homophobia “almost always entirely stems from religion” and that the state’s religious legislators should remind themselves that other people have different belief systems that might contradict theirs.

And on Thursday, he tweeted an alternative version of the Pledge of Allegiance:

If the Pledge of Allegiance told the truth: pic.twitter.com/Iy5zoyMOls — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) April 2, 2015

As you might expect, this provoked some heavy mockery and ire on Twitter, especially from prominent conservative writers:

The best is when @neiltyson calls people of faith stupid and simple then whines that America is "divided" https://t.co/u997SZrQaT — Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) April 2, 2015

.@neiltyson Have your PR firm's intern's assistant delete your account. — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) April 2, 2015

The latter of those three examples — The Federalist publisher Sean Davis — is perhaps best-known in this context for having exposed multiple instances in which Tyson fabricated quotes he attributed to former President George W. Bush.

Rather than respond to his Twitter critics about the alt-pledge, Tyson simply added some more thoughts on Indiana’s RFRA:

Another way to look at “Religious Freedom” laws, is that they give you the legal right to make less money. — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) April 2, 2015

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