Description

An Atheist Epic tells the dramatic story of how fourteen-year-old William J. Muray III and his mother Madalyn Murray (later O’Hair) challenged the compulsory recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and forced reading of the Christian Bible in the public schools of Baltimore.

It tells of the beatings young Bill received with the approval of school authorities, police, and courts, and of the attacks on the Murray home instigated and led by good Christians ??attacks that led quite directly to the fatal heart attack suffered by Mrs. Murray’s father. It describes the Christian execution of little Garth’s kitten and the sorry demise of the two ‘Atheist dogs’ that Bill and Garth had as companions after loss of the kitten. Virtually all the religious attacks upon the First Amendment-mandated separation of state and church that America has endured since 1963 have been in retaliation to ‘Murray v. Curlett’ — the case that Madalyn successfully took all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to obtain the ruling that forced prayer and Bible reading were unconstitutional.

The improbable series of events that led to that decision are painted here in colorful detail.

About the Author

Madalyn Murray O’Hair, whom Life magazine dubbed “The Most Hated Woman in America,” is best remembered for her 1963 landmark case Murray v. Curlett, in which the US Supreme Court ruled in her favor, outlawing forced prayer and Bible reading in the public schools of America. A fighter for reason and a defender of the ‘Wall of Separation’ between state and church right up until being violently murdered with her family in 1995, even today she continues to be America’s best-known atheist.

Details

ISBN-13:?9780910309899
Publisher:?American Atheist Press
Page Count:?298