Madalyn Murray O'Hair
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Madalyn Murray O'Hair (April 13 1919 - 1995) was an American atheist, founder of American Atheists and campaigned for the separation of church and state.
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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 US Marines, she in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. In 1945, while posted to a cryptography staff in Italy, she began an affair with William J. Murray Jr. and bore him a child (William). Murray was a married Roman Catholic and refused to divorce his wife to marry Madalyn, who nonetheless divorced Roths and began calling herself Madalyn Murray. In 1949 she obtained a Law degree from South Texas College of Law but never practiced. On 16 November 1954 she gave birth to another son (Jon Garth Murray) by a different father.
An American atheist
In 1960 she began a lawsuit (Murray v. Curtlett) 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. 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.
Following the Supreme Court decision Madalyn founded American Atheists, "a nationwide movement which defends the civil rights of nonbelievers, 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 the office on to her son Jon Garth.
In 1965 Murray 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. In 1980 her son William converted to Christianity and became born again at Gateway Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.
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 psychologist Abraham Maslow might have characterized as self-actualizing.
Disappearance
On 27 August 1995 Madalyn, Jon Garth and Robin Murray O'Hair (a daughter of William's 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 worth of gold coins from a San Antonio jeweler but took delivery of only $500,000. No further communication came from any of the O'Hairs and in 1996 William Murray filed a missing persons report.
There was speculation 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. Many of the O'Hair assets were sold to clear up their debts. Eventually suspicion turned to David Roland Waters, an ex-convict who had worked as an office manager and typesetter for American Atheist and had previous convictions for violent crimes (along with one for stealing funds from the organisation). Police concluded he and accomplices had kidnapped the O'Hairs, forced them to withdraw the missing funds and murdered them. Waters eventually pled guilty to reduced charges and in January 2001 he led police to three bodies buried on a remote Texas ranch, later identified as those of O'Hair and her family.
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" amoral). 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.
Urban legend
Madalyn Murray O'Hair achieved posthumous notoriety among users of the Internet through a seemingly unsquashable urban legend. An endlessly circulating email (mostly exchanged among Christians) claimed "Madalyn Murray O'Hare is attempting to get Touched by an Angel and all TV programs that mention God taken off the air" (the email invariably misspelled O'Hair's name). It cited a petition to the FCC which had nothing to do with O'Hair and was denied in 1975, concerning the prevention of educational radio channels being used for religious broadcasting. In 2002 these emails were still circulating, seven years after O'Hair's disappearance and long after her confirmed death. A variant acknowledging her death was circulating in 2003, still warning about a threat to Touched by An Angel months after the program's last episode had been aired.