The Fort Worth Transportation Board has devised a solution for the recent turmoil surrounding religious and anti-religious ads on city buses. A new policy prohibits ads with religious or political messages:
Joan Hunter, communications manager for The T, said the decision for the ban was not based on the content of the Coalition's ad, but rather the amount of resources the department had to spare to field concerns in reaction to it.
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The T already had guidelines in place against tobacco and alcohol ads, some local political ads, and those deemed obscene. In a news release, The T says the new policy will "exclude any ads with religious, non-theistic, or faith-based content and all political ads."
I sympathize with government workers whose jobs are to make the buses run on time but who have likely been overrun with press inquiries and customer complaints. But is this really an acceptable answer? Allowing commercial and non-commercial speech on bus ads, but only so long as it's not related to religion or politics? You can ban that sort of thing at family gatherings – maybe not a bad idea! – but on public ad space?
