After being denied banners in downtown Fort Worth, atheist group switches to billboards

Billboards promoting a separation of religion from public schools will be going up in Fort Worth after the atheist group that is buying them was denied on its attempt to put up banners downtown, according to a news release.

The group, Fort Worth Atheists, was allowed to hang banners on downtown light posts in 2019, but this year the city denied the group the right to display them, according to the news release. The group has sued the city for the right to put the banners up.

But after District Judge Reed O’Connor on Sunday denied a temporary injunction that would allow the banners to be posted, the group opted for the billboards, according to the news release. The advertising campaign is aimed at promoting an Aug. 26 event, Keep God out of our Public Schools. The billboards will be up until Aug. 24.

The event will focus on “the dangers of christian nationalism,” according to the news release. Christian nationalism “is a religious and political belief system that argues the United States was founded by God to be a Christian nation,” according to an article in theconversation.com.

The organizers of the event were told when their application to hang banners was denied that the event was “not of a ‘magnitude’ to qualify.”