FORT WORTH — The end is near for religious advertisements on Fort Worth buses.
Two weeks after controversy erupted because the Fort Worth Transportation Authority accepted ads with the atheist message "Millions of Americans are Good Without God," the T board revised its policy Wednesday night to ban all religious ads effective Jan. 1.
"I don't like the ads. I think they create divisiveness," T board member Gary Havener said before the nine-member board unanimously approved the new policy.
But Havener also criticized the people who pressured T drivers not to operate buses adorned with the ads and urged riders to boycott the transit system.
"I don't like people coming in here and muscling our employees when we're trying to provide transportation," he said.
The new policy is effective immediately, but existing ads will remain on buses until their contracts expire. No religious ads are under contract beyond Dec. 31, T President Dick Ruddell said.
The "Good Without God" ads were bought for $2,480 by the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason, whose members said they wanted to raise awareness of nonreligious social groups.
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