Madalyn Murray O'Hair facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
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O'Hair in 1983
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| President of American Atheists | |
| In office 1963–1986 |
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| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Jon Garth Murray |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Madalyn Mays
April 13, 1919 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | September 29, 1995 (aged 76) San Antonio, Texas, U.S. |
| Spouses |
John Roths
(m. 1941; div. 1946)Richard O'Hair
(m. 1965; died 1978) |
| Domestic partners | William Murray Michael Fiorillo |
| Children | William (with Murray) Jon (with Fiorillo) |
| Education | Ashland University (BA) South Texas College of Law (LLB) |
Madalyn Murray O'Hair (née Mays; April 13, 1919 – September 29, 1995) was an American activist supporting atheism, and separation of church and state. In 1963, she founded American Atheists and served as its president until 1986, after which her son Jon Garth Murray succeeded her. She created the first issues of American Atheist Magazine and identified as a "militant feminist".
O'Hair is best known for the Murray v. Curlett lawsuit, which challenged the policy of mandatory prayers and Bible reading in Baltimore public schools, in which she named her first son William J. Murray as plaintiff. Consolidated with Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), it was heard by the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that officially sanctioned mandatory Bible-reading in American public schools was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had prohibited officially sponsored prayer in schools in Engel v. Vitale (1962) on similar grounds. After she founded the American Atheists and won Murray v. Curlett, she achieved attention to the extent that in 1964, Life magazine referred to her as "the most hated woman in America". Through American Atheists, O'Hair filed numerous other suits on issues of separation of church and state.
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Early and personal life
Madalyn Mays was born in the Beechview neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 13, 1919, the daughter of Lena Christina (née Scholle) and John Irwin Mays. She had an older brother, John Irwin Jr. (known as "Irv"). Their father was of Scots-Irish ethnicity and their mother was of German ancestry. At the age of four, Madalyn was baptized into her father's Presbyterian church; her mother was a Lutheran. The family moved to Ohio, and in 1936, Mays graduated from Rossford High School in Rossford.
In 1941, Mays married John Henry Roths, a steelworker. They separated when they both enlisted for World War II service, he in the United States Marine Corps, and she in the Women's Army Corps. In April 1945, while posted to a cryptography position in Italy, she began a relationship with officer William J. Murray Jr., a married Roman Catholic. He refused to divorce his wife. Mays divorced Roths and adopted the name Madalyn Murray. She gave birth to her son with officer Murray after returning to Ohio, and named the boy William J. Murray III (nicknamed "Bill").
In 1949, Murray completed a bachelor's degree from Ashland University. She earned a law degree from the South Texas College of Law, but did not pass the bar exam.
She moved with her son William to Baltimore, Maryland. On November 16, 1954, she gave birth to her second son, Jon Garth Murray, fathered by her boyfriend Michael Fiorillo.
According to her son William, a Baptist minister, Madalyn was a communist who unabashedly supported the Soviet Union. William claimed that when he was still a child, Madalyn began hosting Socialist Labor Party meetings and asked him to attend so he could, as quoted from Madalyn, "learn the 'truth' about capitalism." William also claimed that Madalyn, who denied being a communist, actually held secret meetings in their basement with her Communist Party comrades. She twice sought to defect to the Soviet Union, applying first in 1959 through the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., and again at the Soviet Embassy in Paris, travelling there for the express purpose in 1960; on both occasions, the Soviets denied her entry. On their return from Paris, Murray and sons went to live with her mother, father, and brother, Irv, at their house in the Loch Raven, Baltimore neighborhood. Soon after, Madalyn accompanied William to their neighbourhood school, Woodbourne Junior High, to re-enroll William for freshman classes. Madalyn was unhappy to see students, after the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, engaging in prayer. She instructed William to keep a log of all religious exercises and references to religion for the next two weeks, saying, "Well, if they'll keep us from going to Russia where there is some freedom, we'll just have to change America." After the two weeks, and after her request that William be allowed to leave class during prayer times was denied by school authorities, she pulled him out of school and proceeded to file a lawsuit against the Baltimore Public School System, naming William as plaintiff. She said that its practices of mandatory prayer and required reading of the Bible were unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court upheld her position by a ruling in 1963.
Because of hostility in Baltimore against her family related to this case, Murray left Maryland with her sons in 1963 and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii. She had allegedly assaulted five Baltimore City Police Department officers who tried to retrieve her son William's girlfriend Susan from her house; she was a minor and had run away from home. Susan gave birth to William's daughter, whom she named Robin. Murray later adopted Robin.
In 1965, Murray married U.S. Marine Richard O'Hair, and changed her surname. He had belonged to a Communist group in Detroit during the 1940s. During investigations of the 1950s, he gave more than 100 names of other members to the FBI. Later, he was investigated for falsely claiming to be an FBI agent. Their relationship has been described as "textbook codependents". Although the couple separated, they were legally married until his death in 1978.
In 1980, she publicly rejected her estranged son William when he announced that he had converted to Christianity. He later became a Baptist minister.
Activism and politics
In 1960, Murray filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore City Public School System (Murray v. Curlett), naming her son William as plaintiff. She challenged the city school system's practice of requiring students to participate in Bible readings at the city's public schools. She said her son's refusal to participate had resulted in bullying by classmates and that administrators condoned this behavior. After consolidation with Abington School District v. Schempp, the lawsuit was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1963. The Court voted 8–1 in Schempp's favor, saying that mandatory public Bible readings by students were unconstitutional. Prayer in schools other than Bible-readings had been ruled as unconstitutional the year before by the Court in Engel v. Vitale (1962).
O'Hair filed a number of other lawsuits: one was against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) because of the Apollo 8 Genesis reading. The case was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court for lack of jurisdiction. The challenge had limited effect.
O'Hair endorsed Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election because of Carter's opposition to mandatory school prayer, his support for sex education in public schools, and his stance on ecological matters.
In a 1989 interview, O'Hair said "I told my kids I just want three words on my tombstone, if I have one. I'll probably be cremated. One is "woman." I'm very comfortable in that role. I've loved being a woman, I've loved being a mother, I've loved being a grandmother. I want three words: Woman, Atheist, Anarchist. That's me."
Feminism
During an interview in 1965, O'Hair described herself as a "militant feminist" and expressed her dissatisfaction with women's inequality in America.
She also expressed her discontent with the women's liberation movement.
American Atheists
After settling in Austin, Texas, O'Hair founded American Atheists in 1963. It identifies as "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 served as the group's first chief executive officer and president until 1986. She was the public voice and face of atheism in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Although her son Garth Murray succeeded her officially as president, she retained most of the power and decision making.
In a 1965 interview, she described religion as "a crutch" and an "irrational reliance on superstitions and supernatural nonsense". In the same interview, O'Hair described numerous alleged incidents of intimidation and death threats against her and her family. She read several letters she claimed to have received, including one that read (referring to the conversion of Paul the Apostle on the road to Damascus), "May Jesus, who you so vigorously deny, change you into a Paul." O'Hair told the interviewer, "Isn't that lovely? Christine Jorgensen had to go to Sweden for an operation, but me they'll fix with faith — painlessly and for nothing." She said that she left Baltimore because of persecution from residents. She said she thought such events were a catalyst for her father's fatal heart attack.
She filed several lawsuits challenging governmental practices, based on upholding and defining the constitutional separation of church and state. Among these was one against the city of Baltimore's policy of classifying the Catholic Church as a tax-exempt organization in terms of property.
O'Hair founded an atheist radio program, in which she criticized religion and theism. She hosted a television show, American Atheist Forum, which was carried on more than 140 cable television systems.
Arrested for disorderly conduct in Austin in 1977, O'Hair continued to be a polarizing figure into the 1980s. She served as "chief speechwriter" for Larry Flynt's 1984 presidential campaign. She was regularly invited to appear on TV talk shows as a guest. Her second son Garth Murray officially succeeded her as president of the American Atheists, but she was said to retain most of the power. Some chapters seceded from the main group at the time. But as of 2007[update], American Atheists continued as an active organization with a growing membership.
Her son William J. Murray became a Christian in 1980 and later a Baptist minister, publishing a memoir of his spiritual journey in 1982.
In 1988, O'Hair produced several issues of Truth Seeker under her masthead as part of an attempt to take over the publication, but the courts ruled against her ownership.
In the 1990s, American Atheists staff consisted of O'Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray, Robin Murray O'Hair, and a handful of support personnel. William J. Murray was estranged from his mother, brother, and daughter. They had not met nor spoken for many years. The trio lived in O'Hair's large home, worked in the same office, and took shared vacations.
Court cases
O'Hair filed numerous lawsuits in which she argued the separation of church and state had been breached.
- Murray v. Curlett (1963) Challenged Bible reading and prayer recitation in Maryland public schools.
- Murray v. United States (1964) To force the Federal Communications Commission to extend the Fairness Doctrine so that atheists could have equal time with religion on radio and television.
- Murray v. Nixon (1970) Challenged weekly religious services in the White House.
- O'Hair v. Paine (1971) Challenged open readings from the Bible by U.S. astronauts (who are Federal employees) during their spaceflights, spurred by a reading from the book of Genesis by the crew of Apollo 8.
- O'Hair v. Cooke (1977) Challenged the opening prayer at city council meetings in Austin, Texas.
- O'Hair v. Blumenthal (1978) Challenged the inclusion of the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency.
- O'Hair v. Hill (1978) To have removed from the Texas constitution a provision requiring a belief in God of persons holding offices of public trust.
- O'Hair v. Andrus (1979) Challenged the use of National Park facilities for the Pope to hold a Roman Catholic mass on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
- O'Hair v. Clements (1980) To have removed the nativity scene displayed in the rotunda of the capitol building in Austin, Texas.
- Carter, et al. v Broadlawns Medical Center, et al. (1984–1987) Challenged the full-time employment of an unordained chaplain at a tax-funded county hospital, Broadlawns Medical Centre in Des Moines, Iowa.
Kidnapping and murder
On August 27, 1995, O'Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray, and her granddaughter Robin Murray O'Hair disappeared from their home and office. A typewritten note was attached to the locked office door, saying "The Murray O'Hair family has been called out of town on an emergency basis. We do not know how long we will be gone at the time of the writing of this memo." When police entered O'Hair's home, it looked as if they had left suddenly. The trio said in phone calls that they were on "business" in San Antonio, Texas. Garth Murray ordered US$600,000 worth of gold coins from a San Antonio jeweler, but took delivery of only $500,000 worth of coins.
In fact, the trio had been murdered by their former associates, and the bodies were not found until 2001.
See also
- Charles E. Stevens American Atheist Library and Archives
- List of kidnappings
- List of solved missing person cases
