Madalyn Murray O'Hair succeeded in pulling the Bible and
mention of God out of public schools. Michael Newdow has taken up where
she left off. Newdow is demanding that the words "In God We Trust" be removed
from U.S. money and the pledge of allegiance in schools . Their
bios are below.
Two of many groups fighting the atheist philosophy are here> www.aclj.org www.restorethepledge.com
Madalyn Murray O'Hair (April 13, 1919 - 1995) was an American atheist,
who founded American Atheists, and campaigned for the separation of church and state. She
was murdered at age 76. Her body was sawed into pieces and only confirmed by her
prosthetic hip.
Birth, marriage and children
Madalyn Mays was born in Beechview, Pennsylvania. As an infant she was baptized into the
Presbyterian church. She married John Henry Roths in 1941, however they separated when
they both enlisted, he in the United States Marine Corps, she in the Women’s Army
Auxiliary Corps. In 1945, while posted to a cryptography position in Italy, she began an
affair with William J. Murray, Jr, and she gave birth to a boy (William). Murray was a
married Roman Catholic, and he refused to divorce his wife to marry Madalyn, who
nevertheless divorced Roths and began calling herself Madalyn Murray. In 1949 she
completed a Law degree from South Texas College of Law, but she never practiced law. On
November 16, 1954, she gave birth to another son (Jon Garth Murray) by a different father.
In 1960, Murray filed a lawsuit (Murray v. Curlett) against the Baltimore, Maryland School
District in which she claimed it was unconstitutional for her son William to participate
in Bible readings at Baltimore public schools. She further went on to claim that her son's
atheism had made him the victim of violence from other classmates, violence that she
claimed was overlooked by administrators who didn't care if injury were to befall an
atheist. In 1963, this suit (amalgamated with the similar Abington School District v.
Schempp) reached the United States Supreme Court which voted 8-1 in her favor, effectively
banning 'coercive' public prayer and Bible-reading at public schools in the United States.
Public opinion was such that in 1964, Life magazine referred to Madalyn Murray as the most
hated woman in America.
American Atheists
Following the Supreme Court decision, Madalyn founded American Atheists, "a
nationwide movement which defends the civil rights of non-believers, works for the
separation of church and state, and addresses issues of First Amendment public
policy." She acted as its first CEO before later handing that office on to her son
Jon Garth.
In 1965, Madalyn married Richard O'Hair. Throughout the 1970s she publicly debated
religious leaders on a variety of issues and also produced an atheist radio program in
which she criticized religion and theism. She filed lawsuits on many issues over which she
felt there was a collusion of church and state in violation of the Constitution. Richard
O'Hair seems to have dissappeared from the scene, and his fate remains unknown.
In 1980, her son William converted to Christianity and was "born again" at a
Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, where he took up work as a preacher. In sermons, he
accused his mother of using him as a tool in her crusade, claiming she had lied about her
reasons for filing the lawsuit against Maryland, and that he had never been the victim of
any kind of violence at the hands of his Christian classmates. He said that the true
reason for his mother filing the suit was her deep personal hatred for followers of
Christianity. William said her zeal against Christianity was so great that it had taken
over her life and rendered her incapable of seeing other people (himself included) as
anything but either enemies or people who agreed with her every ideal.
Murray called her son's conversion "unforgivable" and spoke of symbolically
murdering him for what she viewed as a transgression against her: "One could call
this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and
completely for now and all times...He is beyond human forgiveness."
Madalyn Murray O'Hair clashed not only with religious believers but with many atheists.
She expelled members of American Atheists who did not conform to her ideas of how atheists
should behave. In a 1982 address, she criticized a wide variety of atheists as being
unacceptable, seemingly all except those whom the psychologist Abraham Maslow might have
characterized as engaged in self-actualization.
Disappearance and death
On August 27, 1995, Madalyn, Jon Garth, and Robin Murray O'Hair (William's daughter who
had been adopted by Madalyn) disappeared from the headquarters of American Atheists,
leaving a note implying an absence for some time and a visit to San Antonio, Texas. In
September, Jon ordered $600,000 (USD) worth of gold coins from a San Antonio jeweler but
took delivery of only $500,000 (USD). No further communication came from any of the
O'Hairs, and one year later, William Murray (Madalyn's son) filed a missing persons
report.
There was speculation that the O'Hairs had abandoned American Atheists and fled with the
money. One investigator concluded they had gone to New Zealand. Other theories suggested
fundamentalist Christians had kidnapped the trio. Another rumor was that Madalyn had died
of natural causes, and that her remains had been secretly disposed of to prevent the
possibility of a "Christian burial" of her by her Christian son. The O'Hairs
were declared legally dead, and many of their assets were sold to clear up their debts.
Ultimately a murder investigation focused on David Roland Waters, who had worked as an
office manager and typesetter for American Atheists and who had previous convictions for
violent crimes and also one for stealing $50,000 from the organization. Police concluded
that he and his accomplices had kidnapped the O'Hairs, forced them to withdraw the missing
funds, and then murdered them. Waters eventually pled guilty to reduced charges.
Subsequently, in January 2001, Waters informed the police that the O'Hairs were buried on
a ranch in Texas, and gave them the exact location of the ranch and the bodies. When the
police excavated there, they discovered that the O'Hairs' bodies had been cut into dozens
of pieces with a saw. The remains exhibited such extensive mutilation and successive
decomposition that identification had to be made through dental records, by DNA testing,
and in Madalyn's case, by her prosthetic hip.
Legacy
Some atheists have contended O'Hair's aggressive (some say abrasive) strategy of direct
confrontion with mainstream Christianity, which included specific attacks on its validity
using quotes from the Bible, was flawed and ultimately undermined efforts to encourage and
preserve secularism in schools and government. She has also been criticized for failing to
adequately address issues of ethics and morality as they relate to a non-religious outlook
(given that many Christians are reported to erroneously believe atheists are "by
definition" immoral). By the time of her death the word atheist had become so closely
associated with her name and personal views (especially in the United States) that it was
already declining in popularity among atheists and various efforts have been made to
introduce a new term into common use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Murray_O'Hare
Michael Newdow
Michael Newdow is a Sacramento, California attorney and medical doctor. He is a strong
atheist and an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. In 1997, Newdow started a
naturalistic organization called the First Amendmist Church of True Science (FACTS), which
advocates a strong separation of church and state in public institutions.
Newdow is most famous for a lawsuit filed on behalf of his daughter against inclusion of
the words "under God" in public schools' recitals of the United States Pledge of
Allegiance. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the phrase constitutes an
endorsement of religion, and therefore violates the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, the decision was later overruled by
the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds, citing that Newdow did not have custody of
his daughter and therefore did not have the right to bring suit on her behalf. Newdow has
once again filed suit regarding the same issue, but this time on behalf of three unnamed
parents and their children. Citing the precedent set by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in the course of Newdow's previous suit, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton has
concurred that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.
In November of 2005, Newdow announced he wants to have "In God We Trust" removed
from U.S. money. In a November 14, 2005 interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Newdow
compared "In God We Trust" being on U.S. Currency with segregation (specifically
separate drinking fountains), saying "How can you not compare those? What is the
difference there? Both of them (whites and blacks) got equal water. They both had access.
It was government saying that it's OK to separate out these two people on the basis of
race. Here we're saying it's OK to separate two people on the basis of their religious
beliefs."
http://www.restorethepledge.com http://www.aclj.org |
