The Atheist
Subtitle: Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: January 15, 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 384
ISBN-13: 9780814751718
Subjects: Agnosticism & atheism; Biography: general; Women; General; Atheism; Women In The U.S.; Biography & Autobiography; Biography / Autobiography; United States; Biography/Autobiography; USA; Historical - General; Political; Biography; Atheists; O'Hair, Madalyn Murray
First sentence: ON DECEMBER 8, 1960, Madalyn Murray (later O'Hair) filed suit in the Superior Court of Baltimore, Maryland, asking the Court to rule that required Bible reading and recitation of the Lord's prayer in the city's public schools are unconstitutional.
Description: "In this first full-length biography of O'Hair, Bryan Le Beau offers a penetrating assessment of her beliefs and actions and a probing discussion of how she came to represent both what Americans hated in their enemies and feared in themselves. Born in 1919, O'Hair was a divorced mother of two children born out of wedlock. She launched a crusade against God, often using foul language as she became adept at shocking people and making effective use of the media in delivering her message.

She first gained notoriety as one of the primary litigants in the 1963 case Murray v. Curlett which led the Supreme Court to ban school prayer. The decision stunned a nation engaged in fighting "godless Communism" and made O'Hair America's most famous - and most despised - atheist.".

"Drawing on original research and interviews, Le Beau traces O'Hair's development from a child of the Depression to the dictatorial, abrasive woman who founded the American Atheists, wrote a series of books denouncing religion, and challenged the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, "In God We Trust" on American currency, the tax exempt status of religious organizations, and a host of other behaviors she saw as violating the separation of church and state.".

"O'Hair remained a spokesperson for atheism until 1995, when she and her son and granddaughter vanished. They appeared to have taken with them at least $500,000 in American Atheist funds. It was later discovered they were murdered by O'Hair's former office manager and an accomplice."--BOOK JACKET.