Nontheist Of The Week: Madalyn OHair She was the one that jump started the atheist movement in America in 1963 by founding American Atheists. She was never one to back down from a discussion with theists. Despite her anti-establishment, anti-religious views, to the Religious Right & many atheists at that time, she was seen as a threat Madalyn Murray OHair was once described by Time magazine as the most hated woman in America. She was certainly the most famous atheist in America during the latter half of the 20th century; she never shunned the spotlight and she never avoided an opportunity to create controversy and discussion. Insofar as she was hated, it was not simply because of her atheism as it was for her vocal arguments on behalf of a number of positions which infuriated Americans - mostly when it came to the role of religion in American public life. Married young to a Pittsburgh steelworker, OHair and her husband were split up by World War II when both enlisted. He became a Marine and went to the Pacific while she joined the Womens Auxiliary Army Corps (WAACs) and by 1943 whe was a lieutenant serving with the cryptographic staff at the Supreme Allied Headquarters in North Africa, France, and Italy. While in Italy, she met an officer with the Eighth Army Corps, William Murray, Jr., and conceived a son with him. Murray was also married at the time and, as a Catholic, was against the idea of divorcing in order to marry Madalyn. She gave birth to another son in 1954, Jon Garth Murray. He was also conceived outside of marriage, but this time to a different father. Life in 1950s America was very difficult for a divorced mother of two children, each born to different fatherrs, and these conditions probably helped shape her anti-establishment and anti-religious views. It was not long, however, before she began to relish her role as critic, dissenter, and outsider. OHair & School Prayer Madalyn Murray OHair made headlines when she objected to her eldest son, William, participating in Bible readings in the Baltimore public schools. Her case was later combined with another from Pennsylvania, Abbington School District v. Schempp, in which the Supreme Court invalidated such practices in public schools across the country. Although people commonly claim that Murray, who later founded the American Atheists, was the women who got prayer kicked out of public schools (and she was willing to take the credit), it should be clear that even had she never existed, the Schempp case still would have come to the Court and Bible readings would still have been found unconstitutional. OHair used her public noteriety to push for the rights and interests of atheists in both law and society. After the Supreme Court decision, she founded American Atheists - one of the better known atheist organizations in the United States. Throughout the 1970s she publicly debated religious leaders on a variety of issues and she also produced an atheist radio program in which she criticized religion and theism. She also filed numerous lawsuits on many issues where she felt that religion had been given too much liberty in violation of the Constitution; she was criticized for filing suits which she had no chance of winning, but she argued that such cases had important symbolic value, no matter how likely it was that her suit would be dismissed eventually. Madalyn Murray OHair not only raised the ire of religious believers, but also of many atheists. It was not uncommonf for her to kick out of American Atheists members who did not conform to her vision of what atheists should be like. In an address to the 1982 convention of American Atheists she criticized a wide variety of atheist types as being unacceptable - the only one left was a Maslovian type which was based upon the ideas of psychologist Abraham Maslow and which was characterized by self-actualization. In 1992, OHair dissolved the nation-wide network of state chapters of American Atheists, bringing the entire organization under centralized control. Although many plausible reasons were offered for this move, many believed it much more likely that it was done in order to eliminate infighting and regular challenges to OHairs authority.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 19:04:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015