Page 6- The Behrend College Beacon - Thursday, Janmarx 21, /WO
Diaries
O ’ Hair
By Paul Duggan
The Washington Post
AUSTIN - Two generations ago,
when Madalyn Murray O’Hair helped
vanquish formal prayer from public
schools and became what Life maga
zine called "the most hated woman in
America,” she reveled in the animos
ity. A loud, combative woman, a de
vout disbeliever in God, she rarely
missed a chance to ridicule religion,
often on her radio show heard on
scores of stations. These days, though,
long after obscurity has enveloped
O’Hair and her organization, Ameri
can Atheists Inc., the former Balti
more housewife and U.S. Supreme
Court litigant remains noteworthy for
one reason: her strange absence.
More than three years have passed
since O’Hair, then 76, and her two
closest allies, both family members,
vanished from their Austin home. Are
they dead? Are they lounging in the
tropics? God only knows. Adding to
the mystery is the fact that after the
three disappeared, groups affiliated
with American Atheists reported in
tax forms that $629,500 in organiza
tion money had disappeared with
them. Police are searching, at least
nominally, for them. No clues have
surfaced.
It turns out, however, that O'Hair
did leave something behind a record
of her thoughts during decades of pri-
Advocates ask Holocau
Los Angeles Times
OAKLAND, Calif. Last July, Sid
Wolinsky got a taste of how difficult
it will probably be to gain greater ac
knowledgment for disabled Holo
caust victims, when he and Patricia
Kirkpatrick, director of development
at Disability Rights Advocates, vis
ited Yad Vashem. the massive Holo
caust memorial outside Jerusalem.
Wolinsky, the litigation director for
the international rights organization,
argues that Yad Vashem’s depiction
of the murder of people with disabili
ties at the hands of the Nazis "seri
ously understates the issue and is his
torically inaccurate.”
Yad Vashem Vice Chairman
Johanan Bein wrote to Wolinsky af
ter his visit, acknowledging the dis
abled dead. But Bein called that mass
murder a “forerunner” to the Shoah-
Holocaust and said that his center “by
law. is dedicated to the remembrance
King honored with day of prayer,
fun and
By Lena H. Sun
The Washin
:ton Post
WASHINGTON - Around the region
and the country Monday, people cel
ebrated the birthday of slain civil
rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
with solemn speeches, prayerful re
flection and volunteerism, as well as
fun and games. Last Friday would
have been King's 70th birthday. In
Georgia, crowds gathered at two
churches where King preached to
hear him hailed as a man who "paid
the ultimate price” so that others
could be free. No other man in mod
ern times has done more to lift the
dignity of the common man, Rep.
Sanford Bishop, D-Ga„ told a packed
Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta.
Answering his own call for Ameri
cans to spend the holiday doing vol
unteer work, President Clinton turned
up Monday with Vice President A 1
Gore at Regency House, a Northwest
Washington retirement home. Within
minutes, the two blue-jeaned leaders
brought down a wall with hammers
and crowbars in the basement of the
city-owned building. The room is to
be renovated by volunteers of
Americorps’ National Civilian Com
munity Corps for use as a medical
of absent atheist
headed for auction
vale and public turmoil. Among her
belongings, and soon to be offered at
auction, were diaries covering 9)
years about 2.000 pages of re lice
lions, fears, complaints, boast-, la
ments and anti-religion m \ ecu', a tV« m
the best-known litigant in the I ‘-to?
Supreme Court case that barred orga
nized classroom prayer. They also re
veal a woman who, alter sears ot hard
financial limes, was eager for the per
sonal comforts that often accompany
fame, including a bigget house, a
Cadillac and a mink coat. To help pay
for the luxuries, she hoped to "humili
ate (evangelist) Billy Graham for
money" in a lawsuit, she wrote in
1973. And there is a lot of anger.
“What is the matter with hating?" site
wrote in Oclobei 195 b. belon- a laige
number of Americans came t« ■ hate
her, and she appeared to bask m ilteii
ill will. She thought it odd that hate is
"treated as a leper among the emo
tions."
Born in Pittsburgh, she mariied at
22. Her first child. William Murias
Jr., was fathered by another man. and
she and her husband became es
tranged. In the early I 95()5. she v. ound
up in Baltimore, living in poverty. She
used the last name Murray. although
she did not marry William's lather
After another man fathered her sec
ond child, Jon, she gave him the same
last name, Murray. "My Inline has
never looked more dismal and eon
ol the Shoah-Holocaust." ueluted as
including Jew ish victims alone.
The Oakland organization got a
slightly better response liom a survey
Kirkpatrick sent to 70 1 loloeaust ecu
ters and associations around the coun
try. In the survey, she asked the groups
if they mention disabled Holocaust
victims in their icmembianee ceremo
nies and. if not. would they con- idei
it. Only lb surveys were completed
and returned, but of those, four re-
sponding organizations said that they
already commemorate people with
disabilities.
At Rick Landman's eav and lesbian
synagogue in New York, wui ■ 'nop.. i .
have included the disabled in their
Yom Hashoah ceremony for die past
11 years. Traditional!;.. six candles .is e
lit during such commemoram >ie . i op
resenting the 6 million Jew s v. im died
in the Holocaust. After cvpei mi. nt mg
with as many us I 5 candles n in ■dude
all the various victim groups; "We had
volunteer work
Later, in brief remarks to d ' ol the
home's 160 residents. Clinton praised
the volunteers as a living example ol
the “partnership across lacia! lines”
that King had envisioned. "Remem
ber what Dr. Kimzsaid: Everyone can
be great because everyone can scrvc.’
Clinton said. And as the president
quoted from a fasorite In inn of King's
"If I can help somebody . . then my
living will not be in vain" he elicited
a robust "All right!" from wispy Idella
Davis. 88.
Like most of her fellow residents at
Regency, Davis said she was delighted
that Clinton was visiting her home.
And his audience, though small, was
a sympathetic crowd. They used
words like "dreadful." "terrible," "a
shame” and "very unfair" to describe
the impeachment trial.
In Prince George's County. Md..
dozens of students gathered to admire
three dozen colorful posters draw n by
their elementary and high school col
leagues as part of a contest to depict
King’s legacy of racial harm, my "I
want people to know that we should
treat all people the same, regardless
of their color," said Cat,men Cuopct.
11, a sixth-grader at Hollywood El
ementary who won first place lor it
poster depicting people ol lilkevni
World and Nation
wisely my hopes have never been
brighter." she w rote on Feb. 23, 1955.
"It must be that: hitting the absolute
bottom, now there is no place to go
but back up. I'm unemployed, have a
baby who lakes up every bit of my
time, have no clothes, have no pros
pects."
.And she saw hypocrisy all around
her liaek then. "We read books, maga-
zines, newspapers ... sec movies
hear piays ... have inculcated in
schools, church and other institutions
one type of moral code. ... Actually
we ignore that code completely and
live by raw rules that disgust, revolt
and injure.” Having declared herself
an atheist, she took up the legal fight
against classroom prayer after notic
ing that pupils in William's Baltimore
school were taking part in organi/ed
worship. Though she was not the lead
litigant m the 1963 case, she was the
loudest and most combustible, and
quickly sei/cd the public stage when
the landmark ruling was issued. She
made atheism a livelihood, attracting
supporteis and donations and even
tually rooting her organization in Aus
tin in 19(>5.
I lie diaries, he cun in 1953. do not
cover the period 1959 to 1972, so
there are no contemporary references
to the Supreme Court case. The 13
volumes and other O’llair personal
papers are being kept in a bank safe
deposit box here by a court-appointed
st centers to include disabled
a big fire." Landman says with a
laugh, the synagogue settled on the
usual six plus one for gays, the dis
abled and others. Landman is the
founder of the International Associa
tion of Lesbian and Gay Children of
Holocaust Survivors, which plans to
eieel a separate memorial in New
3 oik lor gay am! lesbian Holocaust
v mums in Mav. rather than askinc for
inclusion in existing monuments.
So la:. Disability Rights Advocates'
effoits lor inclusion have caused sev
eral Holocaust organizations across
the country to rethink how they re
member the Nazis' disabled victims.
The lAS Holocaust Memorial Mu
seum m Washington already distrib
ute. a separate pamphlet on victims
with disabilities and displays a pho
tograph of a "euthanasia" center with
smoke billow mg Irom its eremalories.
And. because of Wolinsky \ request
that remembrance ceremonies be
bioadeiied. the museum's board is
races titled "Don’t Judge People By
Their Color." "These posters remind
us of our humanity , of our kinship."
said William Welch, executive direc
tor of the county's human relations
commission, which sponsored the
poster contest. The commission was
created in 1972 to help the county heal
the rift between blacks amt whites
alter court-ordered businc.
Organizers of Monday's holiday
stressed the importance of involving
youngsters. Despite occasional down
pours. almost all the tables were lull
at an all-y ou-can-cat breakfast buffet
in New Carrollton, Md. Sponsored by
the Ebony Scholarship Society Inc.,
an organization of black profession
als. many of the hostesses and mem
bers of the choir were teen-agers.
Julius and Javvii Pittman, both 35, of
handover, Md., have been taking their
five children to the breakfast for the
last lour gears. Julius Pittman is a
I'cdeial postal worker; his wife is a
researcher at the National Institutes
of Health. Their oldest child, Morgan
Holland. I 3, w as one of the hostesses.
"I'm glad people still remember Mar
tin Luther King because he was a
good man," she said.
In Virginia, the organizers of
Reston’s annual Martin Luther King
Jr. Dav vowed that .the celebration
bankruptcy lawyer, Ron Ingalls,
whose assignment is to sell any
O’Hair assets he can l ine! to help pay
her $250,000 debt to the Internal Rev
enue Service. Ingalls said he has
found no assets other than the diaries.
They are tilled with gripes about the
dil I’ieulty of fund-raising; angry eriti
cism of staffers, whom she regularly
and often permanently alienated; and
an August 1478 entry after the death
of Pope John Paul.
"This fanatical cretin who knew the
devil existed in the flesh, who rem
loreed the theology of the church,
who gave the edict which charged
women with unrelenting pregnancy,
is being eulogized even by the com
munist world in a sick debasement of
the human intellect." she wrote. “I
only wish I could spit on his corpse
for the world to see that some of us
consider this trust misplaced.”
She became Madalyn Murray
O’Hair after she married her second
husband, now deceased. William
Murray Jr., who survived years of
emotional turmoil alter the Supreme
Court case, is now a Christian activ
ist in Virginia. His adult daughter
Rohm, however, was one of O’Hair's
most trusted confidantes, along with
O'Hair's younger son. Jon. They dis
appeared with her in September 1995.
"eonsidering an appropriate re
sponse," says spokeswoman Mary
Morrison.
The Holocaust Resource Center in
Bultalo, N.Y.. is considering whether
to include a separate commemoration
for people with disabilities in its Day
ol Remembrance ceremonies. The
Holocaust Center of Northern Cali
fornia will address the issue in the
next year. And the Dallas Memorial
Center for Holocaust Studies voted in
early November to light a seventh
candle during its Yom Hashoah cer
emonies "in memory of the other vic
tims, ’’ says Frieda Soble. executive
director. "It wasn't a deliberate exclu
sion." Soble says. "No one brought it
to our attention" until the survey
landed on her desk this fall. "Their
letter made a difference." Soble says.
w ould be fun. Rather than a few hours
of solemn speeches, the committee
planned a day-long celebration of
music, community service awards,
dramatic performances and _ of
course _ a lew speeches designed to
draw participants of all ages. So there
were birthday cakes, bell-ringers and
sing-alongs. All 10 public schools
serving the Reston area were invited
to participate, as were dozens of
churches and community groups. "It’s
a celebration of (King’s) birthday but
also of the community’s diversity,”
explained planning committee Chair
man Alvarez LeCesne. "We
wanted the whole community to be
That plan worked. More than a
thousand people streamed in and out
of the Reston Community Center
Monday, the largest crowd ever for a
King Day celebration. They had free
coffee and pastries, applauded foot
stomping performances by local
choirs, and joined in more than a few
choruses of "We Shall Overcome.’’
Methodists take vow
against church ban at
gay nuptials
By Rene Sanchez
The Washington Post
SACRAMENTO - In defiance of the
United Methodist Church, nearly 100
of its ministers gathered here Satur
day and gave an elaborate public
blessing to the marriage of Jeanne
Barnett and Ellie Charlton, a lesbian
couple whose union is prohibited by
the church’s canons. The unusual
event at once an angry protest rally
and a joy ful wedding was the latest
illustration of how deeply divided the
Methodist Church has become over
homosexuality and same-sex mar
riages. Its 8.5 million members make
it the nation’s third-largest Christian
denomination.
"Nothing quite like this has ever
happened in public before for us,"
said Karen Humphrey, a church mem
ber who helped organize the cer
emony, which was staged inside a
downtown convention center here. "1
hope you can see there's a lot of line
for us,” Charlton said after the cer
emony. “The closet is chirk and damp
and unhealthy. I hope those of you
who are in the closet can find a way
to come out."
More than 1.000 rebellious church
members, some of whom had never
met the couple, came from across the
West to the ceremony, which lasted
for much of the day. It began w ith a
solemn "circle of love," in w Inch sup-
porters linked hands outside the con
vention hall, and concluded with a
formal wedding program. The min
isters who performed the rites of mar
riage were joined, at least in spirit,
by dozens of other Methodist clergy
men nationwide w ho could not attend
but sent petitions of support. They
could all be facing serious risk: Some
Methodist leaders have vowed to put
them on trial for violating church
doctrines; if found guilty, they could
all be defrocked.
But the--ministers, who liken their
cause to the civil rights moveinenl of
the l l96os. are daring (he church to
take action against them. Their mass
blessing of the lesbian couple was
mostly a protest because Barnett and
Charlton, both in their sixties, already
have exchanged vows rluring a re
cent private ceremony in the company
of a Methodist minister.
The two women, who have lived
together for 15 years, are members
of St. Mark’s United Methodist
Church in Sacramento. Its senior pas
tor, the Rev. Donald I-'ado. has de
nounced church policy from his pul
pit for months. He took the lead role
in S
aturday’s ceremony, which he
called his first act of dissent against
the Methodist church in the four de
cades he has been one of its minis
ters. As the service began, a choir that
was at least 100 voices strong sang
hymns from a stage lighted with
candles and covered with flowers.
The entire crowd stood and swayed.
Some closed their eyes and clasped
their hands in praver. while others
Poe
grave “Roses
and
Cognac”
mystery-man
By Rob Hiuusen
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE -A mystery man who
for nearly 50 years left roses and co
gnac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe
died in December, according to a
computer-written note found early
Tuesday at Poe’s grave. The note was
tucked among three roses and a bottle
of Martell’s cognac hand-delivered by
another mystery man at Poe’s grave
on his 190th birthday.
“The gentleman who started the tra
dition in 1949 died from a prolonged
illness this December,” says Jeff
Jerome, curator of the Edgar Allan
Poe House and Museum. As he does
each Jan. 19, Jerome spent the night
in Westminster Hall and witnessed a
man leaving the customary gifts at
Poe’s original grave behind the
church. Jerome found the letter mo-
held bright banners alolt. Still more
waited in a long line to sign the
couple’s wedding guest book.
Mam spoke breathlessly about be
ing part of the unprecedented cer
emony and said they were determined
to keep fighting then ow n church.
" This is our lunch countei. this is our
freedom ride, 'said Barbara
Heintzelman. 55. who came with two
buses full of supporters from Fresno,
Calif. "We’re standing up and saying,
'No more.' God’s love doesn't draw
lines." "The Christian religion is not
supposed to exclude people, said
Curtis Moore, a Methodist from San
Francisco. "Jesus hung out with lep
Outside the convention center, the
mood was tense. Under the close
w atch of police officers on horseback,
about a dozen protesters who were
kept across the street railed against ho
mosexuality. waving signs such as
"God Hates lacs." Dunne the cer
emony. Fado's voice quavered with
emotion as he introduced the couple,
calling them "two people whose love
is an inspiration and whose commit
ment is a challenge to us." The crowd
erupted w ith a standing ovation. Later.
Charlton's granddaughter read a poem
saluting the couple's courage
F’ado ami the oilier ministers here
are angry w Ith the Methodist national
leadership loi reasserting last fall that
-sex union-' cannot he sanc
tioned. 'I lie issue lus been a source
of turmoil within the church and
among oilier I’rotestanl denomina
tions for several years. And both sides
in the dispute use an assortment of
Bible passages to justify their stance.
No major Protestant denomination
has approved the ordination of openly
practicing homosexuals as clerics, and
no Christian faith has established ritu
als lor blessing same sex marriage
So far, lewer than 500 of the more
than 50,000 Methodist ministers na
tionwide have said they would bless
samc-scx unions, liul imiuv's ccr
oniony is one ol mam signs of grow
ing discomfort or outright defiance of
church polio} on homosexual unions
by ministers and the faithful. Some
Methodist officials say the split is the
most serious internal strile the church
has had to confront in decades.
Until today, the most significant
outbreak of dissent in the Methodist
church oxer its prohibition of same-
sex unions occuired two sears ago in
Omaha when the Res. Jimmy Creech
blessed the marriage of a lesbian
couple. I'lie Methodist church filed
charges against him. hut a Methodist
tribunal acquitted him. Creech was the
liis t pei.son iiied ler breaking the
church's covenant.
That ruling, however, was over
turned lasi tall In the denomination's
highest court, winch said the church
ban on gas marriage was binding law .
Since then, other ministers across the
country base stepped forward to bless
gay couples, but none has gone as far
dies
meats alter the stranger in black left
the cemetery around 3 a.m. In the let
ter, the original visitor requested that
the tradition he’d started be contin
ued, Jerome says. He also thanked
Jerome lor safeguarding his privacy
all these years. The curator was
touched and saddened. “I’m sort of
disappointed to know it was an eld
erly gentleman, and to learn he did
die, Jerome says. "Part of the mys
tery is gone."
Still, much mystery remains. The
letter, securely in Jerome's posses
sion, revealed more about the origi
nal visitor's identity. But Jerome will
say no more, other than not to refute
this guess: The latest visitor to Poe’s
grave, only the third man to perform
the rite, is related to the deceased
stranger.