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In the 1920’s, the American Civil Liberties Union was just coming into
being. Struggling for finances, hoping for some media coverage, it issued a
statement that it would give $1,000 toward legal fees for any person who
would challenge the Tennessee antievolution law, the first one passed in the
nation. When no takers came forward, it contrived with two members to
have them swear out warrants in May 1925 against John T. Scopes, a
science teacher in Rhea County High School. Interestingly, Scopes has
personally told Madalyn O’Hair that he was an Atheist. Scopes was using
George W. Hunter’s textbook titled A Civic Biology in his class. His text
could hardly be said to have a thorough explanation of evolution, but it was
enough to bring an indictment against Scopes.
Clarence Darrow, an Atheist, in his book The Story of My Life, wrote the
following when he heard about William Jennings Bryan’s decision to
prosecute the case: At once I wanted to go. My object, and my only object
was to focus the attention of the country on the program of Mr. Bryan and
the other fundamentalists in America. I knew that education was in danger
from the source that has always hampered it - religious fanaticism. To me
it was perfectly clear that the proceedings bore little semblance to a court
case, but I realized that there was no limit to the mischief that might be
accomplished unless the country was roused to the evil at hand. So I
volunteered to go.
I wanted to share that with you because it reminded me of the character of
many of the attorneys and Atheists working for state-church separation
today.
Well, about 150 reporters came from around the world. WGN radio of
Chicago broadcast coverage of the trial on the first national radio hookup.
The most famous reporter there H.L. Mencken, was also, an Atheist.
William Jennings Bryan arrived, accompanied by his son, William, who was
then the assistant district attorney for Los Angeles, California.
When the trial began on July 10, 1925 Darrow found the judge sitting
beneath “a monster sign, saying, ‘Read your Bible daily.’” The judge, to
begin the trial, read from the Bible and asked a local minister to “invoke the
Divine blessing” with a prayer. (That could easily be describing some court
rooms and judges in America today.) Darrow objected both to the sign and
to the trial being opened each morning with a prayer, and he was- of course
-- overruled by the judge, who also refused to permit Darrow to call any
evolutionist as a witness in support of the need to have evolution taught in
the public school. At that time it was generally accepted in the scientific
community that evolution was the key principle which had transformed
biology from a science of description and enumeration into a science of
analysis and explication. Without such testimony, Scopes it seemed, had no
chance. Darrow did the only thing he could do, which is one of the most
effective ways to debate creationists over evolution; make the religionist
defend and prove the story of creation.
Darrow called upon Bryan to consent to be a witness. Darrow’s
destruction of Bryan’s fundamentalism is legendary. He shattered both the
man and his ideas before the world.
The judge, of course, found Scopes guilty and fined him $100. The
Baltimore Sun newspaper paid the fine. The case went on to appeal. Bryan
died in Dayton, just several days after the trial finished on (July 27).
Darrow went on to continuing national fame.
Although the publicity battle was won, the war was lost. The guilty verdict
made a marked impression on the school textbook industry of the day. The
year following, Hunter rewrote his textbook to delete all mention of
evolution. The word did not even appear in the glossary. It was a symbolic
beginning.
Antievolutionist laws began to find more acceptance, the next being passed
in 1926 in Mississippi. Arkansas followed in 1928. In the 1930’s the
Fundamentalists had already begun to approach teachers, textbook
publishers, libraries, and local communities, with their concerns about and
attacks upon, evolution. By 1933 the schools of the nation were using
evolution-free biology books, placating the Fundamentalists. The 1933
edition of Moon’s Biology for Beginners did not even mention the word
evolution. Even the index did not list it.
Fast forward to 1967 and Tennessee enacts a law giving “equal time” to
“scientific creationism.” And in 1973, the creationists were able to have an
antievolution law passed again here in Tennessee.
As you know on August 11, of this year, the Kansas State Board of
Education voted 6-4 to approve new guidelines which, according to the
Washington Times set “the most anti-evolution science education standards
in the country.” As a result, the state’s 304 school districts will now be
given the OPTION of presenting scientific evolution, creationism, or other
accounts in science classes. Of course the teaching of evolution and
creationsism is never presented as an “option” in churches.
Where would we be without the John Scopes’s and the Carlie Sims in
America? As long as there are fundamentalist Christians, as long as one can
violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment with impunity,
there will be a need for activists like Carlie Sims and all the other activists
in this room, and we must be there to support them as much as we possibly
can. Lone dissenters should not be that.
There will also be a need for the American Atheist organization in America
as well.
So I’d like to talk to you a little bit about American Atheists and address
some issues of concern to this organization and what you can expect to see
from us in the years to come.
Since there may be some people here today who are new to Atheism and
are not familiar with this organization, let me tell you a little bit about our
history.
This organization was founded in 1963, after the United State Supreme
Court ruling in the case of Murray v. Curlett, which removed compulsory
Bible reading and reverential unison prayer recitation from the homerooms
of the public schools of our nation. Atheists Madalyn Murray and her son
William J. Murray III, who was, I think 14 years old at that time and (who,
by the way, was forced into exile in the hallway for not praying, which
attorney Pamela Sumners can tell you later, was still happening to school
children recently in Alabama) were the plaintiffs in that case, suing the
President and Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City. In that
case, the Murrays did something unheard of before then, they declared to
the court that they were Atheists and they objected to the organized prayers
and bible readings because of their Atheism, not because they were of a
minority religion and objected to the particular deity being prayed to; they
objected because they were Atheists. They said that prayers were irrational
and that even if there never was an establishment clause to the First
Amendment, they still would have sued, because no child should be taught
to engage in that kind of “insane” activity.
After the Supreme Court decided 8-1 in favor of the “Atheist family”, (and
incidentally, that was the longest written Supreme Court decision ever
rendered at that time) it became impossible for Mrs. O’Hair to find
employment in mainstream America. Because of the trial she was fired
from her job as a psychiatric social worker in Baltimore, Maryland. Using
the names of people who supported her during the trial she put together a
mailing list and thus began the organization known today as American
Atheists.
The past 37 years have been anything but easy. The Murray-O’Hairs have
faced government harassment, tapped telephones, yearly tax audits, (even
on E-Z forms), and harassment lawsuits. Bill Murray, the plaintiff in the SC
case, was emotionally unable to handle the harassment and he “broke”
emotionally.
Around 1976, Madalyn and her husband Richard F. O’Hair adopted Bill’s
daughter Robin, since he was unable to care for her himself. Bill turned to
drugs and alcohol, blaming his mother and Atheism for all of his problems,
and to this day he is totally unwilling to accept any responsibility for his
own actions.
The family home was stormed by the police in Maryland and they were
beaten senseless for which they were charged with beating on the police
and they were sent to jail.
For many years, in the organizations beginning, the family operated out of
their home. With tremendous courage, hard work, intelligence and fortitude
American Atheists with Madalyn O’Hair, her son Jon Garth Murray and
Robin Murray-O’Hair together, have been the authors of modern American
Atheism, which has come into prominence in the last thiry-five or so years.
Yet, it is almost impossible to know exactly what the Murray-O’Hairs have
been doing all these years, if you rely only on what the media prints. There
has been so much disinformation out there that it is time to set the record
straight. So I am going to do it.
Madalyn O’Hair founded the first American Atheist Library & Archives to
collect, preserve, and utilize Atheist history and publications. This library is
internationally known, with an extraordinary collection currently valued at
$3 milllion. Most of it is in storage now as we design the architectural
plans to construct, in our new office building in New Jersey, a modern
library to house this rare collection of books.
She founded the “American Atheist Radio Series” in 1980 as the first -
and only - regularly scheduled Atheist broadcasts ever to be made in the
United States and broadcast over 123 stations for a dozen years.
She also founded the “American Atheist Forum” in 1980, the first - and only
- regularly scheduled television broadcasts ever to be produced, directed,
and broadcast by Atheists. It was on the air for about sixteen years and
aired on 130 major cities reaching an estimated 9.3 million homes.
She founded the first network of Atheist chapters, at the local level, ever
established in the United States.
She worked with one of our early chapter directors, a prominent
businessman, Lloyd Thoren, now deceased, so that he could found the first
American Atheists Museum in the United States. Later she worked with
Lloyd, who owned several telephone companies, to establish the first
“Dial-An-Atheist” service.
Madalyn O’Hair founded the United World Atheists which banded together
Atheist groups in the world and invited a major Atheist leader to speak at
the national conventions. Together with GORA (a compatriot of Ghandi),
she founded the system of World Atheist Meets (WAM).
She founded the American Atheist Press which publishes Atheist books.
In 1987 the Press obtained press credentials for covering both the
Democratic and the Republican National Conventions.
She founded the American Atheist magazine, the first openly outright
Atheist journal which has been published for about thirty years now.
She founded the “American Atheist International Radio Forum” which was
heard on 2,000 radio stations worldwide.
She also began the first production of audio and video cassettes of Atheist
materials ever produced in the world.
She originated the American Atheist annual conventions, of which there
have been twenty-five.
She was the first person to ever propose that the United States and all the
governments of the world recognize the four days of natural events which
affect the world and are the Vernal Equinox (the beginning of
Spring),Summer Solstice (the beginning of Summer), the Autumnal
Equinox (the beginning of Autumn), and the Winter Solstice (the beginning
of winter).
She founded the first Atheist Center in the world. The second was founded
in India by GORA.
Madalyn O’Hair, Jon Murray and Bill Talley of Colorado (who is now
deceased) established an American Atheists Alcohol Recovery Group which
was able to have the Veteran’s Administration rule that veterans in veteran’s
hospitals must be provided secular services in addition to the Christian
Alcoholics Anonymous and Palmer Drug Abuse methods.
Madalyn O’Hair and Jon Murray worked with Arnold Via of Virginia, a
former board member, to create the first Atheist cemetery in the United
States. It is no longer available for use.
They worked with a former Texas chapter director to begin a one-hour,
once-a-week serial program, the “Atheist Hour,” on the Pacifica station in
Houston which ran consistently for over nine years. They assisted in the
creation of a similar program in New York City.
They worked with a number of leaders in the Gay movement to assist them
to set up first the Gay Atheist League of America, and later, a separate
national American Gay Atheist organization.
American Atheists opened the first full-fledged, all-Atheist book store in the
United States in Denver, Colorado, and the second in Austin, Texas.
Madalyn O’Hair was able to obtain a ruling from the Veterans’
Administration to add to the grave markers in veteran’s cemeteries the
symbol of American Atheism.
The Murray-O’Hairs and American Atheists organized and carried out the
first Atheist picketing of any pope in the western hemisphere, in Chicago,
Illinois, in 1979.
They organized and carried out the first Atheist picketing of the White
House in Washington, DC in 1982.
Madalyn O’Hair was arrested and jailed as early as November 1977 for
objecting to prayers in a city council meeting and Robin Murray-O’Hair was
arrested and jailed as late as December 1988, rather than take an oath “so
help me god” in order to serve as a juror.
Madalyn O’Hair, Jon Murray and American Atheists have been the Atheist
leaders who have filed literally scores of state/church separation cases in
city, county, state and federal courts throughout the land in the last thirty
years. The most notable case of course is Murray v. Curlett.
Another notable case, O’Hair v. Pain, in 1969 by the publicity it aroused,
caused the United States government to abandon its plans to carry religious
programming into space in U.S. NASA operations. This was the Apollo 7
Mission, which was sent to circle the moon and look for a landing site and
take photographs. The Mission was code named “Experiment P-1” in which
the astronauts were given a military order to have a “spontaneous
manifestation of religious awe” at 7:31 PM - plus ten seconds, when they
came out from around the back of the moon and saw the planet earth. They
were then ordered to recite from memory the 1st ten verses of genesis
(which were conveniently printed into the flight plan.” The purpose of all
that was to show the communists at that time that the good “Christian”
United States would be better at space flight than the “communistic
government of the old Soviet Union.”
In 1977 the nation-rocking case to remove “In God We Trust” from
currency and coins was filed by American Atheists (O’Hair v. Blumenthal.)
In another case, O’Hair v. Wojtka, Madalyn, Jon and American Atheists
challenged the right of Pope John Paul II to give a full Roman Catholic
mass on the Washington Mall in the District of Columbia in 1979.
Murray v. Goldstein attempted to stop the tax exemptions of church
businesses.
O’Hair v. Briscoe attempted to remove a creche from the rotunda of the
Texas capitol building.
O’Hair v. Hill fought the exclusion of Atheists from public office.
Collins v. Chandler attempted to stop prayers at high school commencement
exercises.
Reed v. Ingham County was fought over the firing of a policeman in
Michigan because he was an Atheist.
O’Hair v. Nixon attempted to stop full scale church services in the White
House.
Murray v. 27 radio stations and Society of Separationists, Inc. v. FCC both
concerned the demand for equal time for Atheists under the “Fairness
Doctrine”
Those, my friends, are only some of the cases brought by the American
Atheist organization over the years.
Madalyn O’Hair has appeared on almost every major television and radio
talk show in the United States and she has written dozens of books,
booklets, pamphlets, magazine articles, etc. all on Atheism and state/church
separation.
If it is tiring to hear this long list of accomplishments, and it is by no means
complete, imagine what life was like for the Murray-O’Hairs for over thirty
five years. You won’t hear about these accomplishments from the press.
Unfortunately, we still do not know what has become of Dr. O’Hair, Jon
Murray and Robin Murray-O’Hair. Jon Murray was the President of
American Atheists from 1986 to 1995. Robin Murray-O’Hair was the
Editor of the American Atheist Press since I can remember, until 1995. No
one misses them more than I do. They were/are my dear friends and I
considered them family.
They disappeared in October of 1995 and have not been heard from since.
A former employee named David Waters, who stole over $54,000 from the
organization in 1993 has been implicated in their disappearance but there is
still no proof as to what actually happened to them. As always we will keep
our members informed in our monthly newsletter of all the latest factual
evidence as we learn it.
The organization you see today is committed to staying the course set by
our predecessors. We are committed to working for the absolute separation
of state and church and the protection of the civil rights of Atheists. This
cannot be done without activism.
I attended a barbecue sponsored by a humanist this past summer and the
regional spokesman for a humanist group addressed everyone and told them
that we didn’t have to become activists. He tried to reassure everyone that
our nation is not going to become a theocracy because both Pat Robertson
and Jerry Falwell are too extreme to be influential in America. Besides, he
liked religion. He told us not to be “afraid” of it. Somehow, I didn’t feel
reassured. I was almost expecting to hear Bobby McFerrin start singing
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
Well I strongly disagree with that gentleman. I think that Falwell and
Robertson have been kept in relative check because of years of hard work
by state-church separationists like ourselves and other civil rights activists,
and not because of wishful thinking.
Let me mention a few of the issues that we face today and you tell me
whether or not we have to get active, or “Don’t Worry - Be Happy.”
In America today, we have a strange situation, vis-a-vis the churches.
Regardless of what the media tells you, Americans are not attending church
in any significant numbers. Actually, church attendance has never been
over 50% of the population - never.
Church schools are closing and churches themselves are used more for
things like day-care centers, exercise classes, bingo, flea markets,
weight-watchers, the occasional wedding and to provide social services paid
for with YOUR tax dollars.
This has meant that the mainline religions have had to go and recruit where
the people are, and that has taken them to the airports, legislatures,
hospitals, prisons, courtrooms, municipal buildings, shopping malls, pubs,
football games, the Boy Scouts, the streets, and most importantly the public
schools, because that is where their next generation of consumers is going to
come from, if they can get to them.
So the churches are used for administering secular social programs and the
public institutions are used for administering religion - What’s wrong with
this picture? I say, if religionists don’t want to go to church, then take
away their tax exemptions and give the buildings to me.
The states of North and South Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania
deny Atheists the right to hold an office of public trust.
Our national anthem includes the words “In God Is Our Trust.”, Our Pledge
Of Allegiance in 1954 was altered in 1954 to include the words “One
Nation under God”. “In god we Trust” was added to our coins in 1908 and
to our paper currency in 1955. A National Day of Prayer was established in
1952 by our so-called secular government and an actual day set aside for it
in 1988, by our so-called secular government.
In public venues our government condones, promotes, organizes or
ignores displays of the Ten Commandments, organized prayers (with and
without sound systems), Bible clubs, witnessing, religious-harassment,
gospel choirs, creches and menorahs - and if you don’t like it - you are told
that you can leave - a la Judge Roy Moore. Leave the classroom, the
graduation ceremony, the lunchroom, the municipal building, the football
game, your child’s little league game - and to this I say- NO WAY. No
Atheist should ever “leave” any place when someone else is doing
something they shouldn’t.
I’ll never forget the anger I felt as I watched a television report in which
Albert Faulkenberry, an Atheist in Alabama, had to leave Judge Moore’s
courtroom, which Faulkenberry was summoned to attend for jury duty,
because Moore was conducting a prayer session. To Judge Moore I say, “If
you want to pray - then you leave the room!”
To the teachers and school administrators who want to have prayers in
public school classrooms - I say “You go out in the hall and do it.”
The effect of all this unconstitutional activity is to give official government
recognition to the citizen who is religious, to the detriment of the Atheist
citizen. Our government marginalizes, ignores and treats us as second class
citizens.
They get away with it because one can violate the constitution with
impunity. There are no civil penalties attached to such violations. You may
get taken to court and have to fight a long, expensive case, maybe up to the
Supreme Court and if you lose you are merely advised to cease and desist.
It is absolutely imperative that fines and penalties be attached to violations
of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, but those penalties have to come
through the legislature - where we are not yet influential. Hence, our strive
to be influential in Washington, DC.
The theists are right. We have freedom OF religion in American but we
don’t have freedom FROM religion. The First Amendment does not grant
us the right to be free from religion, but it should. Unfortunately, the theist
does not see that freedom FROM religion protects the them as well as it
does the Atheist. The minority religionist cannot have freedom of religion
if they cannot be free FROM the imposition of the majoritarian religion.
If we want to be free FROM religion we will have to work for it. That
means “activism”. If you don’t like sitting in the back of the
“proverbial” bus, you have to get up in order to get to the front.
It isn’t easy I know, and trying to organize Atheists is very difficult. They
are by nature not joiners and they are very independent. Trying to organize
Atheists is like trying to herd CATS. But we try. We try.
With those of you who have been willing to come forward and help out we
have in the past four years picketed the religious right-wing, patriarchal
organization known as the Promise Keepers in California, Washington DC,
Michigan and next week in New Jersey.
We have picketed the Pope in New York City and St. Louis, Missouri. We
are litigating in San Francisco to bring down that huge cross on public
property there and expect a win soon. We produce a national cable TV
show that Ron Barrier and I have been hosting for the past five years, which
you can see in the book and product room, and selected episodes are
available for viewing on our web site.
We have lobbied actively against the Religious Freedom Amendment and
the Religious Liberty Protection Act. Next week I will personally deliver
thousands of petitions from our members and supporters to every Senator in
Congress.
We have state directors in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. We
have fifteen affiliated organizations and a Youth Outreach Director as well
as a national Outreach Director to help the cause.
We have a huge, informative web site, a quarterly magazine, annual national
conventions, RAM meetings and a monthly magazine.
We aspire to have a full time paid staffer in Washington DC, which I think
must be our next accomplishment.
We also need our own paid staff of lawyers who will be able to handle the
enormous number of state-church and civil rights violations that come to
our attention regularly.
We know from the last four years that we can survive as an organization
and that we will be here for a long time to come. American Atheists is
ready to meet the challenges before it. We know what to do and how to do
it. The question is whether we want to reach our goals sooner rather than
later. I am here today hoping that you will agree with me, that together, it
can be done sooner.
And I hope that if you live here in Tennessee, will show your support for
Carlie Sims and before you leave today let her know that she can count on
you to help here in Tennessee.
Let me close with a quote that Madalyn O’Hair was fond of and that I like
as well. It sums up the message that I want to leave you with today.
It was written by Ralph Chaplin and titled “Mourn Not the Dead”
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie-
Dust unto dust-
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must;
Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell-
Too strong to strive-
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive;
But rather mourn the apathetic throng-
The cowed and the meek-
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak!
THANK-YOU
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Thank-you Carlie. Good morning. I am very happy to be here in the
beautiful state of Tennessee and in such good company.