The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair

7 O’Hair’s Prominence Recedes

7 O’Hair’s Prominence Recedes Hungry all her life for money and power, she lives at last in a world of material comfort, surrounded by luxurious German cars and expensive artwork. Yet the organization that she created to carry on her crusade is little more than a hollow shell, a sounding chamber for the roar of O’Hair’s complaints. She has suffered the loss of her husband to cancer and the defection, in 1980, of her elder son, William Murray, to Christianity.1 THIS IS HOW an O’Hair observer pictured Madalyn near the end of her public life. He reported having seen “anxiety” in her eyes, which he allowed might have been due to recent family losses. But he also noted that some of her religious opponents had begun to gloat over her decline in influence, for which they often took credit. They pictured her as “quaking at the prospect of death,” to which Lawrence Wright wondered if it was not death but life that frightened her—“life, and the contradictions, the lies, the deceit that make up the furious existence of Madalyn Murray O’Hair.”2 Such comments by O’Hair’s critics might be dismissed as wishful thinking or a projection of what they believed she should feel. In 1982 someoneactuallyaskedher,publicly,ifshehadfoundhappiness,towhich she responded: “Many times, many places, with many people and many things.”3 Butevenherfriendsquestionedherstateofmind.FrankZindler thought she looked frightened, but explained that he thought it was because she had been betrayed so many times. She had to worry about physical assaults and betrayal, so fear was not an irrational response for her. “Madalyn,” he added, “is very sensitive to the reality of mortality.”4 Charles Dew remarked that he saw that anxious look while they were in the American Atheists Center employee kitchen, and she began 244 talking about feeling ill. “She was worried that she was not going to live much longer. There was vulnerability about her that I wasn’t expecting .” He concluded: It seemed to me that she must have lived a hard life, a hard life and an empty life—not because her life is not full of God but because she has no real friends. I intuited something that made me feel really sad. It wasn’t that she imagined that she was going to hell or anything like that. It was that she created a nothingness out of her life.5 Whether they really did see anxiety in O’Hair’s eyes, or even if she was “quaking at the prospect of death,” neither anxiety nor fear of death slowed her down. Although she did make certain concessions to her years, age did not diminish her zeal, and it only slightly curtailed her level of activity. As the decade of the 1980s began, American Atheists prospered. As it continued, however, Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s prominence receded, as did American Atheists. By the 1990s it might be said that, although she remained the best-known atheist in America, no one much cared anymore.6 Atheists could be seen in the national media, but as Robin Murray put it, “only under conditions designed to ridicule them and negate the value of their presence.” Talk show hosts bearbaited them, photo editors published unflattering, even demeaning pictures, and the print media ridiculed their intelligence, education, hair, clothing, and personal relationship—rather than addressing the issues. This was not the result of “an intelligent conspiracy,” Robin added, as atheists no longer caused such fear in the hearts of Americans. Rather, it was the product of “a self-perpetuating cultural conditioning.”7 Otherwise, as O’Hair wrote in 1991: “No one listened. No one cared.” For most, instead of being the most hated woman in America, she became a curiosity— crossing “In God We Trust” off two-dollar bills, autographing them, and selling them as souvenirs.8 WILLIAM AND MADALYN PART COMPANY After a brief stay in Baltimore following his release from jail, William Murray was at loose ends. He returned to Hawaii, where he and Susan tried to continue their marriage. Still only nineteen, he drove a cab and, O’HAIR’S PROMINENCE RECEDES 245 by his own reckoning, had little direction. He took up with another woman, Julie Ann Mathews, and in December 1965 the two left for California , where William worked as an installer in a San Francisco private telephone, intercom, and television...