Madalyn Murray O'Hair

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.[2] She had an older brother, John Irwin Jr. (known as "Irv").[3] 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.[4] The family moved to Ohio, and in 1936, Mays graduated from Rossford High School in Rossford.[5]

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").[4]

In 1949, Murray completed a bachelor's degree from Ashland University.[6] She earned a law degree from the South Texas College of Law, but did not pass the bar exam.[7]

She moved with Bill to Baltimore, Maryland. On November 16, 1954, she gave birth to her second son, Jon Garth Murray, fathered by her boyfriend Michael Fiorillo.[8] Their relationship ended, and it is believed that the boy, known as Garth, never met his father.

It was rumored that Murray sought to defect to the Soviet Union at their embassy in Paris in 1960, but that the Soviets denied her entry.[9][10] Murray with her sons returned to Baltimore in 1960 to live with her mother and brother Irv at their house in the Loch Raven neighborhood.[11] In 1960 she filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore Public School System, naming her son William J. Murray III 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.[12] She had allegedly assaulted five Baltimore City Police Department officers who tried to retrieve her son Bill's girlfriend Susan from her house; she was a minor and had run away from home. Susan gave birth to Bill's daughter, whom she named Robin. Murray later adopted Robin.[13]

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.[14] Although the couple separated, they were legally married until his death in 1978.[4]

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.[6] 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.[15] The case was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court for lack of jurisdiction.[16] The challenge had limited effect.

O'Hair appeared on The Phil Donahue Show several times, including the first episode in 1967. Later Donahue said that O'Hair was unpleasant in person and had mocked him off-camera for being a Catholic. She appeared on the show in March 1970 to debate Preacher Bob Harrington, "The Chaplain of Bourbon Street".

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.[17]

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 with Playboy Magazine, she described religion as "a crutch" and an "irrational reliance on superstitions and supernatural nonsense".[6] In the same Playboy interview, O'Hair described numerous alleged incidents of harassment, 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."[6] She said that she left Baltimore because of persecution from residents. She had received mail containing photos smeared with feces, her son Jon's pet kitten was killed, and her home was stoned. She said she thought such events were a catalyst for her father's fatal heart attack.[6]

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.[6]

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.[18][19]

Arrested for disorderly conduct in Austin in 1977,[7] 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 on to TV talk shows as a guest.[18] 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, American Atheists continued as an active organization with a growing membership.[18]

Her son William J. Murray became a Christian in 1980 and later a Baptist minister, publishing a memoir in 1982 about his spiritual journey. Murray O'Hair commented, "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."[20][21]

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.[22]

In the 1990s, American Atheists staff consisted of O'Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray, and Robin Murray O'Hair, her granddaughter and adopted daughter, and a handful of support personnel (Robin was the daughter of William J. Murray and his girlfriend). William 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.[18]

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) This case tried to remove 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)[23][24] Challenged the full-time employment of an unordained chaplain at a tax-funded county hospital, Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

During an interview with Playboy in 1965, O'Hair described herself as a "militant feminist" and expressed her dissatisfaction with women's inequality in America, stating during the interview:

The American male continues to use her sexually for one thing: a means to the end of his own ejaculation. It doesn't seem to occur to him that she might be a worthwhile end in herself, or to see to it that she has a proper sexual release. And, to him, sex appeal is directly proportional to the immensity of a woman's tits. I'm not saying that all American men are this way, but nine out of ten are breast-fixated, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am cretins who just don't give a damn about anyone's gratification but their own. If you're talking about intellectual and social equality for women, we're not much better off. We're just beginning to break the ice. America is still very much a male-dominated society. Most American men feel threatened sexually unless they're taller than the female, more intellectual, better educated, better paid and higher placed statuswise in the business world. They've got to be the authority, the final word. They say they're looking for a girl just like the girl who married dear old dad, but what they really want, and usually get, is an empty-headed little chick who's very young and very physical — and very submissive. Well, I just can't see either a man or a woman in a dependency position, because from this sort of relationship flows a feeling of superiority on one side and inferiority on the other, and that's a form of slow poison. As I see it, men wouldn't want somebody inferior to them unless they felt inadequate themselves. They're intimidated by a mature woman.[25]

She also expressed her discontent with the women's liberation movement.[26]

On August 27, 1995, O'Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray, and her granddaughter Robin Murray O'Hair disappeared from their home and office.[18] 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.[13] The trio said in phone calls that they were on "business" in San Antonio, Texas.[18] Garth Murray ordered US $600,000 worth of gold coins from a San Antonio jeweler, but took delivery of only $400,000 worth of coins.[27]

Until September 27, American Atheists employees received several phone calls from Robin and Jon, but neither explained why they had left or when they would return; employees reported that their voices sounded strained and disturbed.[18] After September 28, no further communication came from any of the three. American Atheists was facing serious financial problems because of the withdrawal of funds, and membership dwindled in the face of an apparent scandal. There was speculation that the trio had disappeared to conceal assets or avoid creditors.[10]

Murray's 1960 lawsuit against the Baltimore City School System was later consolidated with a similar one from Pennsylvania, when these reached the US Supreme Court on appeal. The Court ruled in 1963 (in Abington School District v. Schempp) that school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools in the United States was unconstitutional. This decision gradually resulted in the end of religious activities sponsored by public schools.[33] Non-religious students had been expected to participate in such activities, and state-level policies varied.[34]

In 2012, a memorial brick for Murray, her son Jon, and her granddaughter Robin was placed at Lou Neff Point in Zilker Park in Austin, Texas.[35]

In 2013, the first atheist monument to be erected on American government property was unveiled at the Bradford County Courthouse in Florida, where other residents had installed a monument to religious ideals. It is a 1,500-pound granite bench and plinth inscribed with quotes by O'Hair, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. The American Atheists said at the time that they planned to build 50 more monuments.[36][37]

Persistent urban myths were told about Murray O'Hair threatening certain TV programs because of so-called religious content. These have been disproved. A 2009 variation of Petition 2493 claims that American Atheists want the "Removal of Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah and other pastors from the air waves". Purportedly James Dobson asks petitioners to send responses and donations to "Lisa Norman". Snopes.com says that it is an urban myth.[38][39] Dobson denies any involvement.[39]

A 2017 Netflix original movie, The Most Hated Woman in America, is a loose dramatization of O'Hair's life. It focuses on the abductions and killings of O'Hair and two family members in 1995.[40]

An episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent entitled "Eosphoros"[41] had many elements in it of the O'Hair murder and the Murray-O'Hair family. "Eosphoros" was in Season 4, Episode 5, originally aired on 24 Oct 2004.

• O'Hair, Madalyn Murray (1988). All about Atheists (American Atheist Radio Series). ISBN 978-0910309448.
• Atheist Primer: Did You Know All the Gods Came from the Same Place?. 1978. ISBN 978-0911826104.
• Dracos, Ted (2010). UnGodly: The Passions, Torments, and Murder of Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair. ISBN 978-1439119969.
• Murray, Jon Garth (1986). All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American Atheists With All the Answers. ISBN 978-0910309035.
• O'Hair, Madalyn Murray (1972). What on Earth Is an Atheist!. ISBN 978-1578849185.
• O'Hair, Madalyn Murray (1991). Why I Am an Atheist: Including a History of Materialism. ISBN 978-0910309981.

• Le Beau, Bryan F. (2003). The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair. ISBN 978-0814752852.
• Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Part 1 of 2. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2013. ISBN 978-1288559565.
• Murray, William Joseph (1992) [1982]. My Life Without God (re-issue). ISBN 978-1936488346. (memoir by her first son after he became a Christian)
• Rappoport, Jon (1998). Madalyn Murray O'Hair: Most Hated Woman in America. ISBN 978-0939040049.

• Charles E. Stevens American Atheist Library and Archives
• List of kidnappings
• List of solved missing persons cases

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

• 1968 debate between Baptist minister Walter Martin and O'Hair – MP3 file
• FBI Records: The Vault - Madalyn Murray O'Hair at fbi.gov
• Biography of O'Hair at Rotten.com
• Madalyn Murray O'Hair at IMDb
• Madalyn Murray O'Hair vs. Religious Broadcasting at urbanlegends.about.com
• Meeting Satan Herself: An evening with Madalyn Murray O'Hair: 14 September 1977
• The Murder of Madalyn Murray O'Hair: America's Most Hated Woman Crime Magazine
• Appearances on C-SPAN