american atheist magazine july 1990

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July 1990 A Journal of Atheist News and Thought $2 .95

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l l e r i c n t h e is tEditor

R. Murray-O 'HairEditor Emeritus

D r. Madalyn O 'HairManag ing Ed itor

Jon G. MurrayPoetry

Angeline BennettNon -Resident Staff

Margaret Bhat tyVictoria Branden

MerrillHolsteArthur Frederick Ide

John G. JacksonFrank R . Zindler

The American Athe ist is published mo nthly

by Ame rican Atheis t Press .Copyrig ht 1990 by Ame rican Atheist P ress.All rights reserved . Reproduction in wholeor in part withou t written pe rmission isprohibited. ISSN : 0332-4310.

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All Christian B ible quotati ons are from theKing James Vers ion, unless otherwisenoted.

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July 1990 American Athe ist



Editor s Desk

t Jne morning as the last pages of

, this issue went to press (yes, the Editor's Desk is often the very

last page ready to be printed) , there wasquite a commotion at your editor'shome.

It was a wet , slippery sort of morning .The skies were slate gray,and a rain wasfallingso lightly that the drops were feltonly on the flesh , not seen . The grasswas slick just to the point of inviting anunsuspecting fall ; the roads merelymoist .

The familywas making ready to go towork . Purses and notepads, the rem-nants of work taken home for the night,were being gathered and put in the car .Keys jangled. The garage door rumbledopen , noisy as ever, to expose the back-yard and driveway to view. It was justthen that the trouble started .

A dog had escaped from his place ofresidence and was excitedly touring theneighborhood. A large, energetic boxer,he easily leaped over our six-foot fencein a single , athletic bound , landing

smack on top of our doghouse. Pausingjust long enough for my brother to seehis leather collar and jinglingtags, proofthat somewhere there was a human be-ing responsible for him, he sliddown thedamp red shingles of the roof of thehouse and into our yard . That was whenhe came nose to nose with Gallagher .

Nowyou have to understand just whoGallagher is to get the fullimpact of therest of this story.

You see, your editor has quite an as-sortment of companion animals. At lastcount, they included four cocker span-iels of varied shapes, sizes, colors, andages, one exceptionally old and intracta-ble female miniature schnauzer, twohuman beings (one male, one female),and - occasionally - a black alley cat .The position Gallagher occupies in thismenagerie is that of chief male dog.Though not particularly large for a cock-er spaniel , he is the tallest (though not

R Murray-O Hair

Austin , Texas

The parable of the two dogs

the heaviest) among the nonhumans,towering above the others at a healthytwenty-one inches. Tight curls (unusualfor his breed) cover his frame and makehim seem a littlelarger than he isincom-parison to the other, flat-coated dogs .But what creates his very dapper ap-pearance isthe two very small islands ofwhite hair, one on his chin and one onhis chest, in his otherwise coal -blackcoat: tuxedo dog is what I sometimescall him. His distinguished appearancefits inwellwith his second favorite activ-ity - being adored, petted, and cooedover. (His most favored occupation isdrinking eggnog; come winter he lurksaround the refrigerator waiting for hisnightly portion, suitably served in aholly -bedecked bowl .)

Like us all, time has worn Gallagher.Six years old, he is of an age when aswitch to senior dog food is not un-called for, but he willbe facing his geri-atric exam by the veterinarian next year.His coal-black coat is, to be truthful, atiny bit gray these days. He suffers from

a bad back , a common ailment incockerspaniels, and sometimes has to havebed rest and aspirin to alleviate the pain.At the time of the incident in question,he was just over a bout of limpingdue toa lacerated paw.

Now that his principal character isoutlined , let us return to the story.

There was the large red boxer, at leastseventy pounds of slobbering, panting,youthful, aggressive, muscled, ruggeddog. And there was our graying twenty-seven-pound Gentleman Gallagher.

Nose to nose.Eyeball to eyeball .In a split second the two were at each

other's throats. And we humans werefrantic. How could our little bitty dogsurvive the attack of such a beast?

By the time Gallagher's three startledhumans could respond to the situation,dashing to the yard to protect him withbrooms and shouts, he had pretty wellsucceeded in fighting off the intruder.Unbelievably, he had pinned the bruteagainst the fence. His mate, a plump

Ju ly 1 99 0

red-haired eight -year-old, had pitched inby giving the buzzard a nip in the rump .When we made it to the yard to defendour helpless little pups, the boxer h adtaken his life i n his paws and made f orsafety over the fence . He was last se enrunning for home around the co rner.

Gallagher didn't even have a scr atchon him. Just a little bit of saliva aro undthe neck . Even his back was fine .

The incident reminded me o f ourstruggles here at the American AtheistGeneral Headquarters. Like Ga llaghe r,we are outmatched, compet ing againstinstitutions that have us beaten in bothnumbers and in finances .

Yet, like Gal, we manage to su rviveeach test of our resources .

The American Atheist Fo rum, w hichis the focus of this issue , is an e xcellentexample of this improbable resilience ofthe American Atheist movement . Sincethe inception of television, religion hashad the hog's share of the program-ming. In the early days stations gaveaway time free to various denom ina-

tions. But religion hasn't had to restrictitself to table scraps for a number ofyears. There are now three satellite net-works devoted to religious program-ming, plus countless theist series andspecials on commercial stations andnetworks.

Against the barrage of religious pro-gramming available in every city , inevery state of the Union, ten years agoAmerican Atheists launched a cableaccess program, to be aired once aweek, in one city. We went nose to noseagainst religion with our little cableshow, armed with only good intentions,courage, and amateur experience . Tenyears later that cab le program hasfound an eager and receptive audienceacross the nation on over 120cable sys-tems .

We haven't chased the religion indus-try over the fence yet. But sometimesthe small, brave, and determined doWIn.

Or some tales have an ending likethat . ~

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Director s Briefcase

The Supreme Courthas declared that it isan open season forreligionists wishing tocapture the minds ofpublic high schoolstudents.

A graduate of the University of Texasat Austin and a second-generationAtheist, Mr. Murray is a proponent of aggressive Atheism. He is ananchorman on the American AtheistForum and the president of AmericanAtheists.

Jon Murray

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An open forumfor evangelizing

Dt was back in February of this yearthat this author wrote a piece on The Equal Access Act ' and its

impact on the public schools ofthe Unit-ed States. that article I gave , in full,the main provisions of the Equal AccessAct, its legislative history, and rendereda discussion of its importance and sep-arationist concerns for its implementa-tion. I shall therefore not now endeavorto repeat allof that information but shallrefer the reader back to that previous

issue of this journal . The text of the per-tinent provisions of the Equal AccessAct are, however, given as a matter ofreference in the sidebar on the facingpage.

By way of brief review, The EqualAccess Act was the federal legislativebrainchild of the Reagan administration.Passed by Congress in 1984in the wakeofthe Supreme Court decision of 1981inWidmar v . Vincent, 3 the purpose of thisact was to extend the provisions of theWidmar case, which had applied only tothe college /university level, down to thelevel of secondary education in publicschools and lay the predicate for suchan extension even into the primaryschool level . Widmar, the case hadarisen out of a dispute at the UniversityofMissouri at Kansas City, at which reg-istered student groups were generallyallowed to meet in campus facilities ,except for groups which desired to usethose facilities for religious worship or

American Atheist, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 5-12 .

298Stat . 1302,20 USC 4071-4073,Sec . 802-804.3Widmar v. Vincent , 454 U .S. 263, 102S.Ct .269, 70L .Ed.2d 440 (8 December 1981) .

There was also another important case atabout the same time which was taken forreview by the Supreme Court on a jurisdic-tional question with the decision neverreaching the constitutional issues . That casewas Bender et af . v. Williamsport AreaSchool District, et al ., 741 E 2d. 538, n. 12(CA3 1984) , decided 25 March 1986. Seepages 8 and 9, American Atheist, February1990 .

July 1990

discussion. According to the 1981Su -preme Court decision, the making ava il-able of meeting space to any registeredgroup established an open forum onthe University of Missouri campus andthus it was unconstitutional to deny aparticular (i.e., religious ) group equalaccess to facilities on the basis of thecontent of the speech of the programconducted at the group's meetings .

short, the Court concluded that if un i-versity authorities let one reg istered

group meet, they would have to let allother registered groups meet incampusfacilities, without regard to the c ontentof the speech at their meetings .

The Equal Access ActThat Court logic was quickly parlayed

by the Reagan administration into afederal lawaptly named The Equal Ac-cess Act. The act essentially, as I havesaid, repeated the logic of the Widmarcase concerning the opening of a fo-rum and in essence stated that oncesecondary school officials allowed any non-curriculum related group to meetin school facilities, they had to allow anyother such group to meet because theyhad, in granting the first group permis-sion, established a limited open forum,in the words of the act .

t was axiomatic that there would bea judicial test of the constitutionality ofthe Equal Access Act despite the prece-dent Supreme Court approval in Wid-mar. Between 1985and 1989 ,there wereseveral circuit court reviews regardingthe application of the Equal Access Actto high school Bible study clubs, eachwith differingrulings, leaving the circuitsdivided on the issue . This judicial diver-gence of opinion led, in part, to the

4The term circuit court commonly refersto United States Courts of Appeal . Thereare currently eleven circuits in the federa lcourt system. The term district courtcommonly refers to the local level U .S. fed-eral court for a particular district (in ruralareas) or city (in urban centers) .

American Atheist



Supreme Court's granting review of acase from Omaha, Nebraska, in late1989,hearing oral arguments in Januaryof this year. That case was Board ofEducation of the Westside CommunitySchools (Dist . 66) et al . v. Mergens .5 Thedecision in that case did not come downfrom the High Court until early thismonth and merits discussion here, as itwas the first case to squarely place theissue ofthe constitutionality ofthe EqualAccess Act before the Supreme Court .

No prayers in Omaha?The fact situation in Mergens was sim-

511 0 S.Ct. 2356, 11 0 L.Ed. 2 d 1 91 (1 99 0).

Austin , Texas

pie. Bridget C . Mergens was a studentat Westside High School in Omaha,Nebraska, in September 1984when sheand friends went to the principal of thatinstitution to seek permission to form a Christian club , which they desired tocall the Christian Bible Study Club,for the purposes of Bible reading, dis-cussion, prayer, and fellowship . Thepolicyof Westside High had been to per-mit students to join various clubs, whichmet after school on school premises .There were about thirty such clubs in1984 ,from which students could chooseon a voluntary basis. School board(city /county level) policy provided thateach group must have a faculty sponsorand that it may not be sponsored by any

Ju ly 1 99 0

political or religious organization . West-side High itself had no written policy onthe formation ofstudent clubs, but mere-ly a tradition that any student or groupofstudents wishing to start a club wouldpresent the idea for their club to aschool official (principal, vice pr incipai) ,who would then determine whether theclub 's goals were consistent , in an over-all way , with school board policies andthe school district's general writtengoals for secondary education . Ms. Mer-gens' request was denied by the princi-pal because she did not have a facultysponsor and because of school fearsthat allowing a religious club at theschool would violate the EstablishmentClause. The denial was appealed to the

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The Supreme Court's interpretation of Congress' intent was that if evenone group which did not directly relate to the courses offered by a schoolwas allowed to meet on school property, all other such groups must be al-

lowed to meet as well, regardless of the content.

board of education, which backed upthe principal . Mergens and her parentsthen filed suit in the federal districtcourt? alleging that the refusal had vio-lated the Equal Access Act, which hadbeen signed into law 11August 1984,aswell as their First (freedom of speech,free exercise of religion) and FourteenthAmendment (due process, freedom ofassociation) rights. Westside Highallegedthat the Equal Access Act did not applyto it, because its extracurricular clubprogram did not constitute a limitedopen forum, and if the act did, it wasunconstitutional because it violated theEstablishment Clause.

The district court ruled for petitioners(Westside High), holding that the EqualAccess Act did not apply because West-side High did not have a limited openforum, as described by the act, since allof its clubs were, in the opinion of thedistrict court, curriculum-related. Thedistrict court also rejected Mergens'First and Fourteenth Amendment claims,of rights to freedom of speech, freedom

of association, and free exercise of reli-gion, based on the conclusion thatWestside did not have a limited publicforum (see sidebar on facing page) as

6The first ten amendments to the Constitu-tion of the United States were termed arti-cles when proposed to the several states byCongress on 25September 1789.These firstten articles were also given the title of the Billof Rights. Article 1 reads in part:

[Congress shall make no law re-

specting an establishment of religion],or (prohibiting the free exercise there-of); or abridging the freedom ofspeech, ...

The first clause, in brackets, is commonlyreferred to now as the EstablishmentClause. The second clause, inparentheses,is commonly referred to now as the FreeExercise Clause. The third clause, in bold-face, is commonly referred to as the FreeSpeech Clause.7BridgetMergens, et al. v. The Board ofEd-ucation of the Westside Community Schools,et al., No. CV 85-0-426. April 1985.

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defined in Widmar v. Vincent and thatthe principal's denial was due to legiti-mate pedagogical concerns.

The district court decision was ap-pealed by respondents (Mergens) to theUnited States Court of Appeals for theEighth Circuit, sitting in St . Louis, Mis-souri . The court of appeals held, insummary, that:

1. The district court erred in findingthat all existing clubs at Westside werecurriculum-related. In fact, most of theclubs were noncurriculum-related andthe interpretation ofwhat was and whatwas not a curriculum-related club, byWestside officials, was so broad as torender the Equal Access Act meaning-less by including any and all clubs intothe related group.

2. Westside maintained a limitedopen forum as defined under the EqualAccess Act .

3. The Equal Access Act did not vio-late the Establishment Clause as peti-tioners (Westside High) had contended.

Since the purpose of the act was to ex-tend the findings in Widmar v. Vincentto public secondary schools, any deter-mination as to the constitutionality ofthe act must hinge on the differences be-tween public secondary school andcollege/university students. Since Con-gress had taken those differences be-tween students of both levels into con-sideration before passing the act, find-ing those differences negligible, its factfinding in that regard was sufficient forthe circuit court to establish that the actdid not violate the Establishment Clause.

The Supreme Court intervenesThe court of appeals, on the above

points, reversed the district court .Westside officials appealed to the Su-preme Court of the United States, andit granted certiorari in 1989,setting oralarguments for 9 January 1990and ren-dering a decision on 4 June 1990. In that

8867E 2d 1076(1989).

July 1990

decision, the Supreme Court affirmedthe findings ofthe court ofappeals eightto one, with Justice Stevens filing thelone dissenting opinion.

The opinion of the Court? was given,in most part, by Justice O'Connor . As isusual in Supreme Court opinions, theruling majority, after the entire court hasexamined, step by step, the contentionsof petitioners (Westside High), eitheragreeing or disagreeing with each andattempting to support that opinion w ithprior case law or logic, renders a deci-sion. One justice, in this case Jus ticeO'Connor, normally is called upon towrite up the opinion inlinewith major itythought . In addition, sometimes indiv id-ual justices willadd concurring opin ionsstating that they agree with the ma joritydecision but differ on either some legalpoint or the other, or perhaps simply themanner in which the justice writing fo rthe majority phrased a particular por-tion of the written opinion . Then thereis usually dissent, with one justice writ-ing for that dissenting minority , and per-

haps an occasional statement from an-other dissenting justice concurring withthe dissent . In this case there was onlyone dissenting justice, Justice Stevens .

Let us take a look now at what themajority of the Court had to say in thisimportant case .

What is curriculum-related?The Court'? noted first, before reach-

ing petitioners' (Westside High) specificpoints, that the Equal Access Act doesnot define the phrase noncurriculumrelated student group, which isthe cru-

9Board of Education of the Westside Com-munity Schools (Dist . 66) et al . v. Mergens,by and through her next friend, Mergens, etal. No. 88-1597,On Writ of Certiorari to theUnited States Court of Appeals for theEighth Circuit . June 4,1990 (110S.Ct. 2356,110L .Ed. 2d 191) .lOForbrevity, and as isusual in legal parlance,Ishall refer to the majority opinion as that of the Court .

American Atheist



cial, pivotal phrase of that act whichneeds then to be interpreted by schooldistricts to effect application of the law.The Court, therefore, said that it mustengage in statutory interpretation upfront in consideration of the Mergenscase. The Court proceeded to interpretthat key, actuating phrase in the act onthe basis ofthe legislative purpose oftheact, as gleaned from documentation ofthe congressional debate on the issue,noting particularly that the act had beenpassed by a wide bipartisan margin andthat it had been introduced as a meansof overcoming a perceived widespreaddiscrimination against religious speechin public schools. l1 The Court thuscame to the conclusion that:

... we think that the term non-curriculum related student groupis best interpreted broadly tomean any student group that doesnot directly [emphasis as in origi-nal] relate to the body of coursesoffered by the school . In our view,

a student group directly relates toa school's curriculum ifthe subjectmatter of the group is actuallytaught, or willsoon be taught, in aregularly offered course; if thesubject matter of the group con-cerns the body of courses as awhole; ifparticipation in the groupis required for a particular course;or if participation in the group re-sults in academic credit . We thinkthis limited definition of groupsthat directly relate to the curricu-lum is a commonsense interpreta-tion of the Act that is consistentwith Congress' intent to provide alow threshold for triggering theAct's requirements .v

In other words, the Court's interpre-tation of Congress' intent was that if

Westside Community Board of Educationv. Mergens, p. 9.12Ibid.,p. 10 .

Austin, Texas

even one group which did not directlyrelate to the courses offered by a schoolwas allowed to meet on school proper-ty, allother such groups must be allowedto meet as well,regardless ofthe contentof the student groups' speech at thosemeetings. So it only takes one grantingof meeting Space by a school's author-ities to a single group which could beinterpreted not to be directly related toan academic course, to trigger theEqual Access Act by creating a limitedopen forum.

This narrow interpretation by theCourt of what is required to triggerthe Equal Access Act isand shall be cru-cial inits effect on future handling of ap-plications by school authorities foraccess to school facilitiesby various stu-dent groups around the country.

July 1 99 0

The rights of the schoolThe Court then addresses the con-

tention of petitioners (Westside High)that the Court's reading of the act un-duly hinders local control over schoolsand school activities, 13 disagreeing inmultiple part as follows :

1 . The Court feels that school districtsretain a significant degree ofauthority inthat they determine the type ofactivities(i.e., clubs, etc.), inwhich their studentsparticipate, through their abil ity tochoose which to officiallyrecognize .

a) School districts maintain theirtraditional control over which sub-jects of instruction they deem appro-

13Ibid.,p . 11.

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a school 's curr iculum indep endent o fany description ofa ctual courses o fferedor of the content of the g roup's speechby school author ities. So, the Cou rtpoints out that its

According to the Supreme Court, school authorities must also grant access in the form of official recognition, which would afford the groupin question the opportunity to use school communication, publicat ion, a nd

display facilities to promote its meetings and activit ies.

priate to offe r; i.e., they establish the curriculum .

b) Since school d istricts controlthe curriculum and the type of ac -tivities (clubs) which they choose toofficiallyrecogn ize, they have controlover the two primary factors whichdeterm ine whether or not the ir cam -pus constitutes a limitedopen forum .They can, therefore, man ipulate therelationship between the curric u-lum and the type of extracu rricular

activ ities they sanction to avoid trig-gering the Equal Access Act .2. The Court cal ls attent ion to the fact

that the act does not lim it a school 's au-thority to curtail e xtracurr icular activi-ties that would interfere with the normaleducational process, order or dis cipline,or endanger person or property .

3. Since the act only applies to sec-onda ry schools which receive federalfinancial ass istance , any school distr ictis free to turn down those federal moniesto avoid coming unde r the p rovisions ofthe act .

The Court then attacks the conten -tion by Westside that allof its volunta rystudent clubs are curr iculum -relatedbecause they further the goals of pa rtic-ular aspects of the school's cur ricu-lum. 14 The Cou rt finds, in agreementwith the ci rcuit court , that Wests idedoes indeed have one or mo re studentclubs wh ich do not relate directly to theschool's cur riculum. It uses such clubsas Subsurfe rs, a scuba d iving club, asan example . Westside does offer swim-ming instruct ion as a par t of its overallphysical education classes , but scubadiving is not taught in that context or inany reg ularly offe red, separate and dis -tinct course. In addition , part icipation inthe scuba divi ng club is not required bythe physical educat ion classes andthose who do join the c lub do not ge tacadem ic credit for doing so . Subsu rfersis not therefore , by the Co urt's logic , a

14Ibid .,p. 14.

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curriculum- related club . The same logicappl ies to the chess club , since no reg -ular chess classes are held for c reditat Westside High. As long as one suchnoncurriculum -related club is allowed, ... Westside has mainta ined a limitedopen forum under the Act, IS accord ingto the Court .

The Court goes on to make two im-portant statements in regard to theissue of what is and is not curriculum -related . First , itagrees with a statementmade by Senato r Leahy 16 during thecong ressional debate on the act whenthe senator said , [A] lim ited openforum should be trigger ed by what aschool does , not by what itsays . 17Sec-ond, itreaffirms a pr incipal f inding of thecircuit court in emphas izing the pointthat:

Todefine curriculum related in away that results in almost noschools hav ing lim ited open fora ,or ina way that perm its schools toevade the Ac t by strateg ically de -scribing ex isting student g roups ,would render the Act merely hor-tatory. v

That is , one needs to look at whichkinds of student groups a g iven schoolactually allows on campus , on a groupby group bas is, rather than merely goingby any written or verba l rational izationthat schoo l authorit ies might offer as t othe curriculum- relatedne ss of thosecampus groups . Also, the concept o f curriculum-relatedness must be definedin a way in which an impart ial, definitivedeterm ination can be made as to whethe ra given group 's act ivities are related to

ISIbid .,p . 16 .16Sen.Patrick J . Leahy (D-Vermont), elect-ed 1974.17130 Cong o Rec. 19222 (1984 ) as cited inWestside Communi ty Board of Educa tion u.Mergens , p . 15.18Westside Communit y Board o f Educationu. Mergens, p. 15 .

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definition o f non curriculu m relat-ed student activi ties looks to ascho ol's actual practice ratherthan its stated policy .... 19

The right to of ficia l r ecognition

The ne xt quest ion is th en whethe rWestside 's denial o f Mergens' right toform a Ch ristian Bib le Study Club con-stitu tes a denial of e qual access to the limited open fo rum which the Cour thas dete rmined that Westside est ab-lished by the type of other groups itallowed to use s chool facilities . Here theCourt makes an important po int abou twhat const itutes equal access . t

seems that Wes tside did allow Mergens 'group to meet informally after schoolhours, but that school authorities didnot grant offici al recognition to thegroup which would ha ve allowed theChristian Bible S tudy Cl ub to be a p artof the overall student activities programand give it acce ss to school news-papers, bulletin b oards, the public ad -dress syst em, and participation in theannual Club Fa ir. So i t is not enough,according to the C ourt, for a school tosimply allow a group with religiousspeech content to use campus meetingfacilities; school authorities must alsogrant access in the form of officialrecogn ition, w hich would afford thegroup in ques tion the opportunity to useschool communic ation, publication ,and disp lay faci lities to promote itsmeetings and activi ties.

Westside had contended in its brief tothe Sup reme Court th at by being forcedthrough the provi sions of the EqualAccess A ct to give official recognit ion to Me rgens ' Christian B ible Study Club,rather than m erely granting it meeting

19Ibid.,p. 16.

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Such official recognition, Westside High School pointed out, would be anendorsement on the part of the school of a religious club

and would constitute the public school's providing the club withan official platform from which to proselytize other students.

space , the school was in effect incorpo -rating religious activities into its officialeducational program . Such officialrec -ognition, Westside pointed out, wouldbe an endorsement on the part of theschool ofa religious club and would con-stitute the public school's providing theclub with an officialplatform from whichto proselytize other students. Any en-dorsement of a religious club by publicschool authorities would establish a par-ticular religion in favor over other reli -gions or over no religion and constitutea violation of the Establishment Clauseof the First Amendment . t is for theseconsiderations that Westside officialsdenied Mergens ' club access to schoolfacilities .

Well, the Court disagreed . It statesthat in Widmar, after applying the three -prong Lemon 20 test, itheld that an equalaccess policy at the university level didnot violate the Establishment Clause .The Court re iterated that in Widmar ithad found that an open forum policyhad a secular purpose of granting freespeech rights to a variety of groups andsuch a policy would in fact avoid entan-glement with religionby doing away withthe necessity for the university to screenthe proposed type of speech that eachgroup advanced as the type for its meet-ings in order to determine which wouldbe allowed on campus , and also that anyincidental benefits whi ch accrued toreligious groups by allowing them tomeet on campus did not const itute es -tablishment of that religion by a stateinstitution . In fact, the Court makes thepoint that overall an open forum policy

2oFrom Lemon li. Kurtzman , 403 U .S. 602,612-13 ,91 S.Ct. 2105, 2lll, 29 L .Ed.2d 745(1971).Paraphrased as follows :

1. The statute must have a secular legis-lative purpose .

2. Its principal or primary effect must beone that neither advances nor inhibits reli-gion.

3. The statute must not foster an exces -sivegovernment entanglement with religion .

Austin , Texas

promotes neutrality toward religionrather than endorsement thereof by astate institution, because if the institu-tion refused access by religious groupsto facilities used by others, that wouldevidence a hostility toward religion .

The Court says that all of this samelogic that it used in Widmar should ap-ply equally to the application of theEqual Access Act . The fact that the actprohibits discrimination on the basis offactors other than the religious speechof a group (political, philosophical) seek-ing access to facilities is sufficient tomake it meet the secular purposeprong of the Lemon test . The purposeofthe act, as stated by Congress , of pre-venting discrimination in access by sec-ondary schools on the basis of religiousand other types of speech is a secularone according to the Court .

With regard to Westside's contentionthat the act has the pr imary effect ofad-vancing religion, the Court finds

a crucial difference between gov-ernment speech endorsing reli -gion, which the EstablishmentClause forb ids, and private speechendorsing religion, which the FreeSpeech and Free Exercise Clausesprotect .

t goes on to hammer that point homeby saying,

We think that secondary schoolstudents are mature enough and

July 1990

are likely to understand tha t aschool does not endorse or su p-port student speech that it me relypermits on a nondiscrim inatorybasis.

The Court makes the follow ing addi -tional points as to why the Equ al AccessAct does not violate the Establ ishmentClause:

1. The act lim its part icipation by

school officials and manda tes that suchmeetings must be held during non-instructional time . Thes e provisions ofthe act avoid the problems o f the p oten-tial for students to emulate teachers asrole models since teacher p articipationis limited, and of mandato ry attendancerequirements since the meet ings a re notheld during school hours .

2. The Court admits the poss ibility ofstudent peer pressure , but opine s thatthis has no bearing on of ficial state en-dorsement , since club meet ings a re nota part of the official school day .

3. The Court feels also that as long asa school makes it clear to students tha tits giving permission to a religious clubto meet outside ofthe officialschool dayis not an endo rsement of the club 'sviews, secondary school students aremature enough to understand that theschool's official recognition o f such aclub shows the admin istration 's neutra l-ity toward religious speech rather thanendorsement thereof .

4. The possibility of officia l endorse -ment of religion by Westside High, o rpreference for a particular be lief, iscounteracted by the fact that there a rea number of other nonreligious clubsalready established at the school and bythe ability of the student body to in itiatea wide variety of addit ional other-than-religious student clubs on campus . Tothe extent that a religious club is merelyone of many different student -initiated

21 Westside Community Board of Educationu Mergens , p . 20.

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ministration, are those which seem tofurther the concept of an overall educa -tional mission of in culcating fundamen-tal values. The danger comes because

The entry of religious clubs into such a realm poses a real dangerthat those clubs will be viewed as part of the school's effort

to inculcate fundamental values, recognize Justices Marshall and Brennan.

voluntary clubs, students should per-ceive no message of government en-dorsement of religion. 22

5. With regard to Westside's claimthat the fact that the Christian BibleStudy Club would require a facultysponsor would entangle the govern-ment in day-to-day surveillance of reli-gion of the type forbidden by the Estab-lishment Clause, 23 the Court countersthat under the Equal Access Act facultymonitors are charged not to participatein any religious meeting and nonschoolpersons are prohibited from attendingsuch meetings, and the act prohibitsschool sponsorship, which rules outparticipation by school officials. The actonly permits assignment ofa school em -ployee for the purposes of custodialoversight of the club 's meetings which,in the view of the Court, does not im-permissibly entangle government in theday-to-day surveillance or administra-tion of religious activities. 24

On the basis of the foregoing, the de-

cision of the Court was that the EqualAccess Act does not, on its face, violatethe Establishment Clause and thatWestside High did violate the act withregard to its denial of meeting accom-modations to Mergens' club. The major-ity voted, therefore, to affirm the judg-ment of the court of appeals .

How open is open?Although concurring in the overall

judgment of the majority, Justices Mar-shall and Brennan issued a separateopinion to emphasize a particular point .They felt that their colleagues had tooliberally applied the findings of Widmar,based on the fact situation of academiclifeon a college/university level, to theformat of a public secondary school en-vironment which they find to be morestructured than the one present at the

22Ibid .,p. 22.23Ibid .,p. 23 .24Ibid .,p. 23.

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Justices Brennan and Marshall

University of Missouri. Marshall andBrennan desire to have a monitoring ofthe effect of an equal access policy onpublic schools, lest that effect be one perceived as conferring the imprimaturof the State on religious doctrine orpractice as a result of such a policy . 25This monitoring by the federal courts isin keeping, according to these justices,withthe history of , particularly, SupremeCourt cases regarding the balance ofEstablishment vs. Free Exercise rights

as they pertain to the peculiar environ-ment of the public schools.

Justices Marshall and Brennan stressthe point that the rest of the majority inthis case failto take into account that inWidmar the student forum at a majoruniversity was wide-open and inde -pendent, consisting of hundreds of var-ious groups, some of them political andoften of a radical nature with regard tothe content of their speech. Such is notthe case at Westside High, or for thatmatter at most other similarly situatedsecondary schools, argue these justices.At Westside, the administration doesnot recognize a single student groupthat could be termed inthe least contro-versial . The clubs that are allowed atWestside, and encouraged by the ad-

25Boardof Education of the Westside Com-munity Schools v. Mergens, No. 88-1597-CONCUR, June 4, 1990. Justice Marshall,with whom Justice Brennan joins, concur-ring in the judgment, p. 3.

July 1990

[T]he entry of religious clubs intosuch a realm poses a real dangerthat those clubs willbe viewed aspart of the school's effort to incul-cate fundamental values.

These justices explain in more detailwhen they say:

As the majority concedes, the pro-gram is part of the district's com-mitment to teaching academic ,physical, civic, and personal skillsand values. But although a schoolmay permissibly encourage its stu-dents to become well-rounded asstudent-athletes, student-musi-cians , and student-tutors , theConstitution forbids schools to en-courage students to become well-rounded as student-worsh ippers .P

Drawing the line betweenschool and club

Justices Marshall and Brennan go onto point out the fact situation that onemay find at a particular secondaryschool makes all the difference betweenthe mere creation of a pluralistic forumfor student speech and outright admin-istrative endorsement of religion. If , at aparticular school, there are already avariety of advocacy type clubs and areligiously oriented club joins the scene ,then students may think little of it be-cause the new club will simply be anaddition to the prevailing field of freespeech opportunities . On the otherhand, if a religious club is introducedinto a forum as the only such one, espe-cially a forum dedicated to fosteringgeneral civic responsibility, as in thecase of Westside, and is advocacy-oriented in distinction to other clubs

26Ibid.,pp. 4, 5.

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Brennen and Marshal l sum up their concerns in this way, Inclusi on of theChristian Club in that program will convey to students th e sc hool-

sanctioned message that involvement in rel igion develops ' cit izens hip,wholesome attitudes, good human relations, knowledge and s kill s.'

which are mostly academica lly or rec -reationally oriented , then the adminis -tration of the school involved wouldneed to ta ke concrete steps , accordingto these justices, to d istance themselvesfrom the re ligious club or r isk reason-able understanding on the part of stu-dents of their endorsement of the club 'sactivities .

On the university level , in Widmar,the Univers ity of Missouri issued d is-claimers to inform the student body ofits nonendorsement of the views of anyparticular g roup. In marked contrast,Wests ide promotes its student clubs asa majo r part o f its overall , ongoing , edu-cational program. In general , say thesejustices, the more that a given educa-tional institution emphas izes the a uton-omy o f its students the less l ikely it isthat student speech wil lbe regarded assynonymous with school speech . It ismuch more likely that a h igher level ofstudent autonomy would exis t at acollege /univers ity level institution thanat a publ ic secondary school .

In addit ion, these justices quest ionthe comprehensive nature of the accessafforded to relig ious clubs by the EqualAccess Act . If there is but a single reli-gious club at a given school and its act iv-ities a re made part ofpubl ic address sys-tem messages , bulletin boards , school -sponsored fairs, etc., and there a re noother political or ideologi cal clubs , itmay no t be so easy fo r students to seethe fine dist inction between pluralistic free speech accommodatio n and en-dorsement .

Brennan and Ma rshall sum up the irconcerns in this way:

The inclusion of the C hristianClub in the type of forum present -lyestabl ished at Wests ide, withoutmore , willnot assu re gove rnmentneutral ity toward re ligion. Rathe r,because the schoo l endorses theextracurricular programs as partof its educational m ission, the in-clusion of the Chr istian Club inthat program will convey to s tu-

Austin, Texas

dents the school -sanctioned mes -sage that involvement in religiondevelops citizenship, who lesomeattitudes, good human relations,knowledge and skil ls. We neednot quest ion the value of that mes-sage to a ffirm that it is not theplace of schoo ls to issue it . Ac-cord ingly, schools s uch as West-side m ust be respons ive no t onlyto the broad terms of the Act'scoverage , but also to this Court'smandate that they effectively d is-assoc iate themselves from the re-ligious speech that now may be-come commonplace in the ir facil-ities.27

Though also con curring with the ma-jority view, Justice Kennedy a nd Jus ticeScalia jump in to make two addit ionalpoints. First is that s ince the Ch ristianClub in the Mergens case was notallowed to form officially , the questionhas not yet been addressed by theCourt and rema ins open as to whethe r

or not, as a matter of practical applica -tion of the Equal Access Act in the f ield,school officialsmay prove that they arein compliance with the statu te throughmeans o ther than sat isfaction o f thecriteria as outlined in §4071( c) Sec.802.(c) (see The Eq ual Access A ct,p. 5) of the act. Second, as JusticeKennedy puts i t, isthe observation that :

I should think it inevitable that apubl ic high schoo l endorses areligious club , in a common -senseuse of the term, ifthe clu b happe nsto be one of many act ivities tha tthe school perm its studen ts tochoose in order to f urther the de -velopment of their in tellect andcharacter in an ex tracur ricularsetting. Bu t no constitutio nal vio-lation occurs ifthe school 's act ionis based upon a recogn ition of thefact that membersh ip ina rel igious

27Ibid.,pp . 9, 10.

July 1990

club is one of many per missibleways for a stude nt to furthe r his orher own pe rsona l enrichment .The inquiry w ith respect to coer -cion must be whether the g overn -ment imposes p ressu re upon astudent to participate in a religiousactiv ity. 28

T he dis sent speaks upNo ana lysis of a Sup reme Court case

is complete w ithout a loo k at the dissent .In this case that ta kes in a justice whohas been no stranger , particularly sincethe Reaga n appointments to the Cou rt,to being the lone dissenter: JusticeStevens .

Justice Stevens jumps right into h isdissent to the majority opinion in thiscase w ith his usual no-nonsense style .

Can Congress really have in-tended to issue an order to everypublic h igh school in the nationstating, in substan ce, that if yousponsor a chess club, a scuba

diving club , or a French club -without ha ving formal classes inthose subjec ts - you must alsoopen you r doors to every reli -gious , political, or social organiza -tion, no ma tter how controversialor distasteful its views may be? Ithink not. A fair review of the leg-islat ive history of the Equal AccessAct . .. discloses that Congressintended to recog nize a much nar-rower forum than th e Court h aslegislated into existence today. 29

28Board of Educa tion of the Westside C om munity Schools , etc., et aI ., v. Mergens, No.88· 1597-CONCUR , June 4, 1990, JusticeKennedy , with whom Justice Scalia joins,concu rring in pa rt and concurring in thejudgment , p. 4. .29Board o f Educati on of the Westside Com munity Schools, etc., et aI ., v. Mergens, No.88-1597·DISSENT , June 4, 1990, J usticeStevens , dissenting, p. 1.

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Of grilled cheese sandwichesand Christian clubs

This brings Justice Stevens to th ecrux of his departure from the maj ority.

Stevens finds nothing in Widmar that would implythat if a high school had a Latin club;

but did not at the same time teach Latin, for example,it would then need to open its doors to, say, a Communist party club.

Justice Stevens goes on to point outthat although the consequences of apublic high school 's acquisition of a limitedopen forum are clear, the def-inition by Congress of such a forum ismore than a littlecloudy . That definitionhangs, according to Stevens, on the am-biguous term noncurricu lum re lated,which all parties agree must be inter-preted on the basis of congressionalpurpose . If that purpose was to see to itthat public secondary schools had the

rule of Widmar, as laid down for collegesand universities, applied to them in likemanner, then itseems to Justice Stevensthat in this case the application of theact should depend upon whether West-side High would have to permit a Chr is-tian student club to meet if WestsideHigh were a college. That is , to keepwith congressional purpose , one wouldhave to treat Westside High as ifit werea college to properly apply the EqualAccess Act . It is because the majoritydoes not apply the characteristics ofthecollege forum as explicated in Widmarto its interpretation ofthe term noncur-riculum related student groups, asapplied to Westside High, that JusticeStevens feels that he cannot agree withtheir analysis .

He points out that in Widmar theCourt had held first that, under the FreeSpeech Clause ofthe First Amendment,the University of Missouri , through itsown policies, had voluntarily establisheda type of forum by which it could notconsistently justifydiscrimination againststudent groups seeking to meet on cam -

pus on the basis of the content of theirspeech. Secondly , in Widmar, the Courthad held that the university could permitstudent-initiated religious groups to par-ticipate in the type of forum it hadcreated without violating the Establish-ment Clause of the First Amendment .Given those two points, says JusticeStevens , if Widmar is to be extended tohigh schools, then one must first ask ifthe high school in question had estab-lished a forum comparable , with regardto the Free Speech Clause, to that

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Justice John Paul Stevens

which the Univers ity of Missour i had es -tablished. Only ifthe answer to that firstquestion was yes , would one then logi-cally need to ask the second question ofwhether or not the application of theEstablishment Clause would differwhenapplied to a h igh school 's open forumthan when applied to that of a college oruniversity . Justice Stevens contendsthat in the case of Westside High thefirst question would need to be answeredno; that is, that the forum established byWestside was not comparable, underthe Free Speech Clause, with that pres-ent at the University of Missouri .

The difference between the two fo-rums , according to Justice Stevens, liesin the fact that at the University of M is-souri there were ove r one hundred reg-istered student groups, with many oftheir activit ies not alone being unrelatedto any specific course offerings , but

often of a controversial or partisannature that a state univers ity could notproper ly endorse . For example, the uni-versity had meetings of the Young So-cialist Alliance and the Young Demo-crats , .and had transcendental medita-tion and humanist speakers. On theother hand , [N]one of the clubs at thehigh school is even arguably controver-sial or partisan .P ?

30Ibid., p . 5.

July 1990

... I believe that the distincti onsbetween Westside's program andthe University of Missouri 's pro-gram suggest what is the bestunderstanding ofthe Act : an extra -curricular student organ ization is noncurriculum related i f it has

as its purpose (or as pa rt of i ts pur -pose) the advocacy o f partisantheological , political , or ethicalviews . A school that ad mits atleast one such club has app arentlymade the judgment tha t studentsare better off if the stude nt com -munity is pe rmitted to , and per-haps even encouraged to , comp etealong ideological l ines. T his peda-gogical strategy may be de fensibleor even desirab le. But i t is wrongto presume that Cong ress en-dorsed that strategy - and dicta t-ed its nationwide adoption - sim-ply because it approved the appli-cation of Widmar to high scho ols.And it seems absurd to presumethat Westside had invoked thesame strategy by recognizing clubslike Swim Timing Team and Sub-surfe rs which , though they ma ynot correspond directly to any-thing in Wests ide's cou rse offer-ings , are no more contro versialthan a grilled cheese sand wich.

Just ice Stevens continues in sayingthat he sees nothing in a h igh school'ssponsorship of any academ ic club ,whether or not it coincided w ith a spe-cific course offering, that would t riggerthe Equal Access Act as long as thesponsored club fits in with the school 'soverall curricula r and pedagog ical mis-sion. He finds nothing in Widmar thatwould imply that if a high school had a

31Ibid., pp . 6, 7.

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The Court's construction of the Equal Access Act,opines Stevens, constitutes a sweeping intrusion

by the federal governmentinto the operation of our public schools.

Latin club, but did not at the same timeteach Latin, for example, it would thenneed to open its doors to, say, a Com-munist party club. If a high schoolchooses to allow political groups to useits facilities , he points out, then itcannotdiscriminate among those politicalgroupson the basis of the level of their contro-versiality.

Using this logic, Justice Stevensagrees with the analysis of the districtcourt when it found that all of the clubsin Westside's program were tied to theeducational function of the institu-tion, 32and therefore constituted a clubsystem that differs dramatically fromthose found to create an open forumpolicy in Widmar and Bender . ''33

Stevens additionally says that themajority erred in not comparing theMergens case to Widmar, but insteadargues from the premises that the intentof Congress was to prevent discrimina-tion against religious groups and thatthe Equal Access Act should not be in-terpreted in a manner that would allow

school boards to define their way outfrom under its reach. He agrees withboth premises, but feels that neitherleads to the conclusion of the majority.

With regard to the first premise,Stevens concludes that Congress neednot have gone beyond the Court's deci-sion in Widmar to prevent discrimina -tion against religious groups. He basesthis on the fact that Congress was moti-vated inits passage ofthe Equal AccessAct by two lines of courts of appealsdecisions. One was a line of decisionsprohibiting schools that wanted to ad -mit student-initiated religious groupsfrom doing so, and the other was a lineofdecisions allowingschools to excludereligious groups because of concernsover possibly violating the Establish-ment Clause . These cases, however,Stevens points out, had to do only withschools which wanted to recognize reli-

32Ibid .,p. 8.33Ibid .,p . 8.

Austin,Texas

gious groups or with schools with other -wise open forums, like that of theUniversity of Missouri, which wanted toexclude them. Both of those types offact situations were addressed in Widmar,he contends.

With regard to the second premise,Stevens points out that the majority iscorrect that a limited open forumshould be constituted by what a schooldoes rather than what it says. If that istrue, and it is the recognition of advo-cacy groups, as he proposes, that con-stitutes the creation of such a forum,then he cannot see how school officialscould manipulate the Equal Access Actto thwart congressional intent . If the limited open forum is defined as themajority would have us accept, by thecurriculum relatedness ofexisting clubs,which is defined by the nature of theschool's curriculum, then it would beeasy for schools to alter the non-curriculum related status of any groupby minor changes inits course offerings.For example, ifWestside High wanted to

make the Subsurfers group curriculumrelated instead of noncurriculumrelated, all it would need to do is tooffer a day or two of scuba instructioninits swimming classes which are part ofits general physical fitness program. Itisthe majority's test of curriculum related-ness that would tend toward circumven -tion of congressional intent, contendsStevens, while his definition of curricu -lum relatedness based on recourse tothe facts of Widmar and with referenceto the existence of advocacy groups provides a test that is both more simpleand more easily administered than whatthe majority has crafted. 34

Although Justice Stevens sees noneed to address the EstablishmentClause question inthe Mergens case be-cause he feels that it was never estab-lished that Westside High had a forumcomparable to that which existed inWidmar, he brings up the interesting

34Ibid.,p . 11.

July 1990

question of

whether the Act violates the Es-tablishment Clause by authorizingreligious organizations to meet onhigh school grounds even whenthe high school's teachers and ad-ministrators deem it unwise toadmit controversial or part isan or-ganizations of any kind .35

Stevens points out that accord ing to themajority's interpretation of the act , if aschool allows students to participate insuch familiaractivities as a chess club o reven a cheerleading squad , these couldhardly avoid being classif ied as n on-curriculum related and therefore sub-ject the school to allowing religiousgroups to use its facilities . Even withoutofficial recognition , a student -initiatedreligious group can exert a not iceablelevel of peer pressure in a public schoolsetting, points out Stevens, but with thestatus of a recognized student club behind it and access to school advertis-

ing media, a religious club becomesmore than simply the indiv idual expres -sion of personal conscience . 36 TheCourt's construction ofthe Equal AccessAct, opines Stevens , constitutes a sweeping intrusion by the federal gov -ernment into the operation ofour publicschools, 37 bringing us to a situation inwhich, ifa public school administrationwishes to keep controversial groups offcampus , then it must cease traditionaland noncontroversial extracurricularactivities unless they relate directly tocourse offerings, thus subvert ing thehistory of Congress's concern that edu -cation remain under local control .

The minutiae ofreligious intrusion

Well,this isa complicated case indeed .What we can plainly see is that the

35Ibid .,pp. 16, 17.36Ibid .,p. 18 .37Ibid .,p . 20 .

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As an Atheist and an advocate of complete and absolute separationof state and church, I am astounded by this narrow, picky analysis

of the constitutional implications of this caseon the part of the Court.

Court, intaking on this issue, decided tofocus inon the minutiae of how to applythe Equal Access Act, in a practicalsense, to public secondary schools. Theargument over that application methodrevolved around how to interpret thelanguage used by Congress in draftingthe act . The justices went to greatlength to argue their points with regardto curriculum relatedness and theiropinion as to what was the exact formulawhich should be used to determinewhether or not a given secondary schoolhad t riggered, in the words of theCourt, the application of the act to itsparticular school .

h t h ppened t othe Lemon test?

As an Atheist and an advocate ofcomplete and absolute separation ofstate and church, I am astounded bythis narrow, picky analysis ofthe consti-tutional implications of this case on thepart of the Court. My position is that itis obviously a violation of the Establish-

ment Clause for Congress to force sec-ondary schools to not alone allow reli-gious clubs onto their campuses but togrant them official recognition. Theviolation of the Establishment Clauseprinciple, as applied to the special situ-ation of public schools, has not beenproperly addressed by this Court .

If one applies the Lemon test to theEqual Access Act, it cannot pass muster.What isthe secular legislative purposeofthe act? The Court has clearlyadmittedin its own analysis of the act's legislativepurpose that it was initiated by Congress to address perceived widespread dis -crimination against religious speech inpublic schools and in response to twofederal appellate court decisions holdingthat student religious groups could not,consistent with the Establishment Clause,meet on school premises during nonin-structional time. 38 That is to say that

38West side Communi tyBd. of E d. u.Mergens,N o. 88-1 S97-0P IN IO N, June 4,1990, p. 9.

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Congress specifically drafted the actwith the end inmind ofgetting more re-ligious speech into public schools andto overturn legitimate appellate courtlaw which had come to the conclusion,more than once, that allowing studentreligious groups on campuses did violatethe Establishment Clause . I contendthat an act of Congress that is draftedwith the intent of injecting public sec-ondary schools with religious speechand circumventing precedent Establish-ment Clause, on point, case law cannothave a secular purpose.

Does the Equal Access Act have a principal or primary effect that neitheradvances nor inhibits religion ? I con-tend that its only effect is to advance re-ligionin that the majorityofthe Congress-persons involved in drafting it laboredunder the conviction that religion wasbeing discriminated against in publicschool fora, so they set out with the ex-press purpose of writing a bill to forcepublic schools to take on religious clubs .That is a primary effect that advances

religion. To pass a law requiring schoolauthorities to allow religious meetingsand advertisements on their premises ishardly inhibiting religion. The fact thatCongress threw into the act some ver-biage about political or philosophicalspeech was a C.YA .39of more concernto the lawyers who advised them than tothe members themselves.

Does the Equal Access Act foster anexcessive government entanglementwith religion''? How can it not? Govern-ment, in the form of public, taxpayer-supported schools, must engage inmonitoring various aspects ofthe speechcontent and activities of any religiousstudent club applying for access underthe act. Just a determination of curric-ulum-relatedness would require the en-tanglement of interrogating the religiousclub to determine if what they plannedto do was related to any current courseofferings, not to mention the continued

3 9C ov er You r A ss.

Ju ly 1 99 0

monitoring to see its speech remainedthe same. We have, in addition, two jus-tices (Marshall and Brennan) who havenow urged the schools into the furthe rentanglement of issuing of disclaimers .

Even Justice Stevens, in his dissent ,goes not to the constitutional issues, butinto a tussle ofhow to define curriculum -relatedness. The entire Court has seenthe forest instead of the trees on thisone.

The point of the argumentReligion, is religion, is religion. It

matters not if it is clothed in ano thername (meditation, moment of s ilence),is done off campus (released time) , is related to some other study, or iscloaked as freedom of speech or stu-dent initiated. Religion is a private affairand does not belong in public schoolfora under any guise. It is a subjective -ly held, nonintellectual opinion and isnot academic in any sense of theword, so it does not belong in an aca-demic setting unless it truly wishes to

encourage its own end. I can think ofnothing more detrimental and self -defeating for religion than to voluntarilyhand its dogma over to true, academic,classroom scrutiny.

We are back to the same premise ofthe church, which is give me a childuntil he is six and I've got him. Thereare only two avenues for the church toget to children . One is through the par-ents and the other is through the stateinstitutions in which they are held cap -tive for the greater part of each year . Ina sociological climate where feweradults are going to church and do nottake the time to haul their children toplaces for religious instruction, thechurch is manic to get its propagandainto the public school . Organized reli-gion has failed to get formal religiousceremonies into public schools, floun-dered on released time concepts, andcan only pass out religious materials offschool grounds in most areas . It is butstrategically wise, on the part of the or-ganized church, to try a new tactic in

A m er ica n A th eis t



Public schools are for education, a commodity this nation lacksmore each day. They should not be thought of as a grove of mindsready for the plucking, as the oft pictured apple on teacher's desk,

by whichever advocacy group can cry the loudest to Congress.

which the most zealous young propo-nents of religion are encouraged to es-tablish these Bible clubs in schoolsacross the nation . In these times ofapathy and ofstudents' being interestedmore in computer games, mutant animalfriends , and drugs than in education, itstands to reason that only the most hys -terically committed youngster for Christwould be at the forefront of those ap-proaching school authorities for cam-pus meeting space . This realityis reflected

in the fact situations of most of thedistrict and circuit court cases which ledto the Mergens decision . These youngevangelists, within the peer group forumof their schools , are certa in to prosely -tize. The hallways , the lunchroom , theexercise field,and the classrooms whenteacher is looking the other way , willbefertile fields to be harvested by this newcadre of evangelical youth . If that iswhat they choose to do, or are led to do,with the ir extracurricular time, thenso be it, but why should the schools beforced to officiallysanction this behaviorthat has nothing whatsoever to do withthe advancement of the academic pur-pose that I for one was under the im-press ion was still the reason behindcompulsory education?

Let me also say a word here about student initiated Bible clubs . It may , infact , be the case that a student here orthere comes up with the idea of forminga Bible or prayer club on his own, but Ithink it far more likelythat such an ideais the implant of a re ligiously saturatedupbringing , parental nudging, pastor,

priest, or rabbi pressure , or a heartychurch camp fireside chat . In short, Iquestion the motivation of any studentwho steps into a principal's office andasks to form a religiously oriented club,as beingan idea solelygenerated betweenhis own two ears .

Time enough for religionWith a church on literally every cor-

ner in this country , there isample oppor-tunity for youth to make a joyful noiseunto the Lord. They need not be given

Austin , Texas

a passkey to the public school system totry to make others listen .

Public schools are for education, acommodity this nation lacks more eachday. They should not be thought of as agrove of minds ready for the plucking,as the oft pictured apple on teacher'sdesk, by whichever advocacy group cancry the loudest to Congress. The pur-pose of public schools, at least when Iattended them, was to impart to the stu-dents the basic fundamentals offact andproblem-solving technique which theywould use for the rest of their lives inpursuit of whatever career they chose .An open marketplace of ideas, inside ofour schools, is one thing, but turningschools into a corral for advocacy grouprecruitment is another . It is a hardenough job for our schools to teach chil-dren how to think, and think for them-selves, without that process being inter-rupted by a multifaceted sea of distrac-tions from sports to spirituality . Everytime I read the remarks of an educator,I see the repeated cry of back to ba-

sics . How can instructors get studentsto concentrate on those basics whenthey are bombarded with sometimesmore act ivities surrounding their classesthan with in them? Now Congress andthe courts have seen fit to expand thatpool of distraction with the addition ofyet another, and highly controversial,element .

The next thing up willbe the closingdown of all extracurricular activity be-cause school systems simply won 't beable to afford to keep the school build-

July 1990

ings open for those extra hours be foreand after instructional time. Thenwhat? Do we move the religious clubsinto the actual school day to be fa ir?

What about the application of theEqual Access Act to the prima ry schoollevel? That has yet to be address ed. Ifitworks on the secondary level, then whynot get them while they are ye t youngerand more impressionable ? The implica-tions of that are fr ighten ing.

The final point here is that religion

never gives up. Those with a reli giousmessage willdo whateve r it takes to getthat message across. Ifit mea ns disrupt -ing the entire public educa tion system ,religionists don't care. It is t he messagethat the religion ists bear that is the prob-lem, more than the lengths to whichthey go in shoving it down t he nation'sthroat . Yet it is that message is neverexamined or questioned , only the tech-nique of its transpo rtation to its ult imatevictim, the human m ind, young or old.That is what the Supreme Court ha sdone here in the case at hand. Rel igionis psycho logically harmful and dese rvesto be kept out of our sc hools , but theonly thing on which the courts can con-centrate is to make certain that what-ever mechanism used to import thatmental illness into the schoo l system is constitutional . Would it be a ll right tointroduce smok ing or drug clubs intothe schools as long as that introductio nwas done under a fair and impartialplan? I think not .

I think it is time that we began e xam-ining the rea l issue about rel igion: its

suitability for our culture - fo r those o fany age. That is the question tha t thecourts and the legislature willnot face.Of what good is the ma intenance of an open forum in schools , to give reli -gious nuts a fair chance to roam thehalls encouraging departure from real -ity, when those same institutions a returning out students who canno t reador comprehend the very Const itutionunder which that forum has been ap -proved, find their hometown on a map ,or address an envelope correctly? ~

Page 15



Ask A.A.

In Letters to the Editor, readers givetheir opinions, ideas, and information.But in Ask A.A., American Atheistsanswers questions regarding itspolicies, positions, and customs, aswell as queries of factual and historicalsituations. Please address yourquestions to Ask A.A., P. O. Box140195, Austin, TX 78714·0195.

Page 16

Andrei Sakharov: Atheist?I have a question to ask American

Atheists. In reading about the lateAndrei Sakharov, and hearing abouthim on television, I was impressed bythe main theme of allhis ideas and com-ments: Progress, Peaceful Coexis-tence and Intellectual Freedom, toquote him. His words and actions spokeof the finest philosophies of Atheism,but nowhere was he quoted explicitlysaying that he was an Atheist . No onepointed out that he was anti-theistic.Was that because the writers or com-mentators did not want to say so, orcould there have been some ambiguityin his makeup? It is hard for me toaccept the latter, since he did not giveany mention of any god or hint of anyreligious leanings .

Helen JohnsonCalifornia

Andrei Sakharov, a thermonuclearphysicist of the USSR who won the No-

bel Peace Prize in 1974, was very care-ful never to utter a word about religion.His second wife, Yelena Bonner, is aJew and he often referred to anti-Semitism.

His statements usually equate withthe following:

The division of mankind threat-ens it with destruction. Civiliza-tion is imperiled by: a universalthermonuclear war, catastrophichungerfor most of mankind, stupe-faction from the narcotic of massculture, and bureaucratized dog-matism, a spreading of mass mythsthat put entire peoples and con-tinents under the power of crueland treacherous demagogues,and destruction or degenerationfrom the unforeseeable conse-quences of swift changes in theconditions of life on our planet.

the face of these perils, anyaction increasing the division ofmankind, any preaching of the in-

July 1990

compatibility of world ideologiesand nations is madness and acrime . Only universal cooperationunder conditions of intellectualfreedom and the lofty moral idealsof socialism and labor, accompa-nied by the elimination of dogma-tism and pressures of the con-

cealed interests of ruling classes ,will preserve civilization .

The reader willunderstand that

ideological collaboration cannotapply to those fanatical , sectar-ian , and extremist ideologies thatreject all possibility of rapproche-ment, discussion, and compro-mise, for example, and ideologiesof Fascist, racist, militaristic, andMaoist demagogy.

Millions of people throughoutthe world are striving to put anend to poverty. They despise op-pression, dogmatism, and dema-gogy. They believe in progressbased on the use, under condi-tions of social justice and intellec-tualfreedom, of all the positive ex-perience accumulated by man-kind,

IFrom The Division of Mankind ThreatensItwith Destruction, in Andrei D . Sakharov,Progress, Coexistence, and IntellectualFreedom, trans. The New York Times,intro. Harrison E . Salisbury (New York : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1968).

American Atheist



Right: The magic number three is notrestricted to male-dominated religions.This three-fold figure of Coventina, agoddess of healing waters , was found inNorthumberland.Below: The three Magi and their giftsappear on an eighth-century Frankscasket.

One, two, threeWhat isthe significance ofthe number

three in Christianity?Jonah was inthe bellyof a whale for

three days.Jesus brought Lazarus back from the

grave after three days.Jesus arose after three days.Then there isthe Holy Trinity (three).

Chet TwarogAPO New York

And there are also the three wisemen bearing three gifts to the newborn-l.C; the three crosses on which twothieves and J. e . died; three days in thetomb; three temptations in the wilder-ness; the three denials of J . e . by Peter,the three falls on the road to Golgotha;the three appearances of the risen J. e.

, to his Clisciples. J. e . was thirty-threeyears old when he died - two of themagic threes, side by side This is allbased on numerological theories. One,standing alone , when multiplied by itself

can only and ever be but one . The num-ber two is simply a pair of opposites .But three is the sum of the prime num-ber (1) and the pair of opposites (2).When three points are connected a tri-'angutar plane is created , facing in alldirections . The number three and thetriangle began their mystic career inancient Hindu theology, which devel-oped the triune deities in Egypt, whichtransmitted this gift to , the Christianworld .

Additionally it has been a male worldfor most of history, and three is thenumber of male genitals. The mysteri-ous one (the penis) and the pair of op-posites (the scrota): the threefold god-head. Three then is the number of cre-ativity. There are three orders in theChurch : bishops, priests, and deacons.There are three theological virtues :faith, hope , and charity. There arethree constituents of humankind : body,soul , and spirit. There are the threefoldenemies of man : the world, the flesh,and the devil.

Austin, Texas

The mystic symbolism ofthe number three permeatednearly every branch of sci-ence for hundreds of years .All time is divided into threeparts: the past, the present,the future . Space is in threeparts : length , breadth , thick-ness . All created things have :a beginning , a middle , and an end. Thethree main divisions of the universe are :the empyrean ,2 the heavens, and theearth . On earth there are three realmsof the visible world: sky, earth, and sea .There are three kingdoms in nature :mineral,vegetable, and animal. Thereare three primary colors: red, yellow ,and blue .

We may never be free of ancient ir-

rational ideas of primitive man.Government money,Christian principles

I would like to know if anyone hasever challenged the getting of Commu -nity Block G rants by the YWCA andYMCA , or any other city, federa l, orstate grants .

Connie BennettConnecticut

Under Reagan, the idea of blockgrants was developed into a high skill .It was under this aegis that billions ofdollars have gone to Roman Catholicand other religiousschools . Also, becauseof the nature of the grants they are verydifficult to track and often even govern-ment agencies do not know who orwhat got how much or when. American

2The highest heavenly sphere consisting offire .

July 1990

Atheists have been attemp ting to trackjust the block gran ts given to schools inTexas for the last ten year s and havecome up, thus far , with a bigfat zero. Inorder to challenge such g rants, onemust have standing to su e, pr esent areal case or controvers y to the court ,and show direct harm wh ich has b eensuffered. These three legal require-ments are simply rules to prohib it any-

one from challeng ing any of the eno r-mous number o f grants wh ich go to re-ligious organizations from the city, thestate , and the federal gover nment.

If one is not thrown out of court onthose reasons , then under the EleventhAmendment the states a re given sov-ereign immunity from such su its.

Once again , the power o f numbersand mone y is needed. Suc h suits can bedragged out for ten years o ver just theissue of whether or not one has thestanding to sue , which is what hap-pened when a number of pro-abo rtiongroups attempted to have the tax ex -emption of the Roman Catholic churchremoved for its obvious political involve-ments over the issue of abortion .

Atheists must learn they must uniteand fund challenges to all of these statesupports of religion. It can be safely saidthat if all direct and indirect subsidiza -tion of the churches by the state wasstopped tomorrow , relifiIion would bedead within ten years . ~

Page 17



The Am erican A theist ForumA look back at 10 years

of Atheism on cabletelevision.

II r scores of years there routinelyappeared in American magazinesa small ad, perhaps one-eighth of

a page, which was titled They AllLaughed When I Sat Down at ThePiano . I t carried a picture of a man sit-ting at a grand piano with hands poisedover the keys. The ad then explainedthat this situation had existed until the

man took a mail-order course on how toplay the piano . The advertisement leg-end was used by many comedians andwriters, and was heard frequently onradio. Many jokes were developed alongthe theme in many types of writing. Ev-eryone inthe nation knew about that ad .

And so it was that They all laughedwhen Madalyn O'Hair sat down in frontof the small video camera, using whichshe had decided to launch somethingshe called The American Atheist Cen-ter News - a one-half-hour televisionprogram .

She had read in a short article in theAustin American-Statesman newspaperthat Capital Cable, a cable televisioncompany, had been required , when itre-ceived a contract to place cable televi-sion in the city, to provide an opportu-nity fo r the use of that cable systemwherewith an ordinary citizen couldtape a television program and have itput on the air .

The control room at the studio at whichthe American Atheist Forum is taped :it takes two people to keep track of it all.

Page 18

• •• •

• •• •

• •

At that time The American AtheistCenter had as an employee a salesmanfrom South Carolina who had come toAustin looking for work . He was incharge of all the telephone and televi-sion appearances that were being madeby Dr . O'Hair at the time. This was KeithBerka.

She called him into her office and toldhim that if he was really a salesman, hecould go down to the cable companyand sell them the idea of permitting herto have one-half hour a week to put onan' American Atheist Center News pro-gram. She anticipated that he would beturned down.

However, when Keith Berka intrudedhimself into the access programming di-visionat the offices ofCapital Cable, thecompany which was supplying cable

July 1990

television to Austin, Texas, he ran intoanother Atheist, Alan Bushong, whowas, at that time , in a single-handedstruggle to get the citizen participationprogram going. He pledged to Berkathat he would do his best to assist sucha program going on the air. Quickly wehad the use of the cable company's bor-rowable equipment, for a cameraman(Bushong), an audio man, and the spon-sorship of Austin Community College.Within a week, Mr. Berka appeared be-fore the Board of Directors of Commu-nity Access Television and had his appli -cation for access accepted. A time slotof 8:30 P.M. each Tuesday was assignedon Austin cable channel 10, KSAT-TV,an ABC outlet functioning out of SanAntonio, Texas .

Mr. Berka brought home to The Amer-

American Atheist



American Atheist Center staff member Keith Berka (below) managed all negoti -ations and administrative details for the Forum to be accepted by the AustinCommunity Television, an outreach ofthe city of Austin.ican Atheist Center this good news . Allthat Dr . O'Hair needed to do was to puttogether, by herself, thirty minutes ofwhat she called news, present it her-self - without making an error - bytalking for thirty minutes straight . Sheneeded to decide on the format, dreamup an introduction and a closing state-ment, pick out a set, and put it all to-gether. The staff at The Center simplylaughed when they heard it all .

Although Austin was one of the cities

inthe nation in which cable access tele-vision was a beginning experiment , it -at first - had no studio in which anyoneof those citizens could film . Allthat wasavailable was portable equipment , onloan : a camera , two small floodlights,and a battery-operated video recorder .Allofthese could be borrowed, and Mr .Bushong agreed that he himself wouldbring them and would film the firstAmerican Atheist programs .

But Dr. O'Hair did not know what todo about a possible set .Bushong advised that manypeople were simply shoot-ing their access shows intheir homes. She did notwant to invite the worldinto hers .

At that time, her officewas one which had brownwoodwork and walls cov-ered with yellow felt . Shedecided to take down apicture which was beh indher desk and exchange it 'for a stenciled , handmade ,

red-white-and -blue sign,t

made by Gerald Tholen, then the vicepresident of the organization . The signread American Atheist Center News . The effect was singularly bad. She alsoasked Mr . Tholen to rig up a small card-board sign for the front of her desk toexhibit the post office box address ofThe American Atheist Center .

The set, the talent , and the determi-nation were there , so an appointmentwas made to film the first show severaldays later.

Atheist history in the mak in g : the firsttaping of the American At h ei st CenterNews.

cameramen , and cheerful y et serious in-studio audience .

At that time Dr . O'Hair was still mak-ing her own clothing, but lack of timehad precluded anyth ing new and so shewas there complete with a then five-year-old tan and b rown flowe red rayon/polyester dress , two rathe r garish signs,a head fullof wh ite hair , and a w illingnessto go .

Bushong advised her that he had nocapacity to edit whatever she said and ifshe made any error it was tough . Whenthe camera was turned on , it would rollfor one-half hour , and she ei ther talkedthat long or she didn 't. Ifshe made anyerrors, they were on film for good andall times. He could not back up , or stopthe film , or pause for correc tion. Everyword was a take. There were no t im-ers. A stopwatch that worked most ofthe time was handed to Bushong , and

he used it to monitor the time , signal ingwith his hand for half-time and with hisfingers for the last three minutes . Hecould not shoot from different angles .She was going to be a talking head s it-ting at her desk . If any noise o ccurred ,if the telephone rang, that wou ld all beincorporated in the f ilm. She was re-quired to talk steadily for one-hal f hour ,coherently , in an organized fash ion, withno errors of any kind. There was nointroduction , no ending, and no stop -ping . She had gathered together a stack

The very first tapingWhen Alan Bushong arrived with a

volunteer friend , much laughter waselicited from the staff . He strode in witha portable shoulder-mounted cameraabout four inches in d iameter, maybefourteen inches long . It obviously had

been knocked around fromthe scars that it bore . Thesound equ ipment and vid -eo/audio recorder wasbrought in, slung over theshoulder of .theyoung wom-an working with him, asmall gadgetlike thing nota foot high, perhaps sixinches wide . From thiscame a long thin wire onwhich was attached a mi-crophone . Frankly, thewhole thing looked as if ithad come out of a Tinker -

toy set . The two youngpeople were typically hippie looking,with long hair, torn blue jeans, and aspi-rations biggerthan both ofthem. Neitherofthem received a salary, and they werefighting both the city and a large cablecorporation so that access time couldcome to life in Austin , Texas. Bushongwould be on camera and Deborah Hillon sound . As it was then and was to befor a considerable time later , they werethe camera crew, the technical advisors,directors, lighting experts , soundmen,

Austin, Texas July 1990 Page 19



of newspaper clippings, which she hadbarely had time to read and, altogether,she was ready to wing it . Two smallspindly portable spotlights were set upand focused on her while everyonechuckled about the white spots, theglare , the shadows behind her , and theslight echo disturbance in the room.Bushong had no time to spare . He hadto be in The American Atheist Center ,set up , tape the show, break down theequipment, and get out within the hour.

There were a great number of restric-tions : there could be no advertising, nosolicitation for funds, no appeal formembership. Dr . O'Hair appeared,leapt into the subject, wound it up ,signed off and that was that : It 's awrap. Once all of that was understood ,the question was asked .

Was she ready to go?The last member of the staff curious-

ly poked in his head and said, Well,here goes the great flop event, ha , ha,ha. Dr . O'Hair looked up and out athim, just long enough to say, They alllaughed when I sat down at the piano, at which time Bushong leveled his longfinger at her to cue talent and theshow began . It was July 2, 1980, andbeing given birth was the first ina seriesof American Atheist television pro-grams which celebrate a tenth birthda yon July 2, 1990,with the 520th programin the series . Dr. O'Hair plunged intothat first presentation. With good humorand an unflagging determination , shetalked for one solid half-hour period,without pause. Oh , when one sees thatfirst program today, the picture is ofpoor quality ; the camera work is static .But the message is powerful and thewoman convincing.

When the program was done, Bushonghad to repair to the small officeprovidedfor him by Capital Cable and there labo-

Page 20

than they could possibly pull in wi th apair of rabbit ears or a roof-mountedantenna . Inorder to offer such a servi ceto consumers in a given metropolitan

Before ACTV, Austin public access service, had its own studio , theweekly American Atheist series was taped at the old American AtheistCenter (below). When ACTV acquired the use of Austin CableVision'sstudio, the American Atheist Forum was quick to take advan tage o fits well-equipped facilities. Because American Atheists is not allowed t ostore the set at the studio but must break it down and return it to th eoffice after each taping, a portable set was built by Mr. Shirley Nelso n,Arkansas Director of American Atheists. In 1983,Mark Plummer (lef t),an Australian Atheist activist, was one of the first foreign guests on t h e

American Atheist Forum and at the new facilities.riously feed lettering ontothe videotape with a primi-tive character generator -on both the fore and aft sec-tions to substitute for theon-the-spot introduction

and close.When everything was appropriate-

ly blessed by Capital Cable, the first American Atheist Center Newsprograms began to air on July 22,1990 .Everyone from The Center waswatching and was appalled when thefirst thing that came on the screenwas a disclaimer for both Capital Cableand the city of Austin:

The views expressed on the fol-lowing programs do not necessar-ily reflect those of either CapitalCable or Austin Community Tele-vision.

Since Capital Cable was required tofurnish the camera and video recorder,and since the programs were filmedwith

the volunteer cooperation of Alan Bu-shong and David Gallessich, the totalmonetary cost of each program was$22. This was the actual cost of a three-quarter-inch broadcast-quality video -cassette.

What is cable access?A short explanation needs to be in-

serted at this point as to the nature ofthe service on which this pioneer out-reach of American Atheists was begin-ning to be broadcast . The idea of cabletelevision was just catching on acrossthe country at the time period of the firstshowing of an American Atheist pro -gram. That concept is simple. A com-mercial, for-profit company will set upfacilities to gather together the broad-cast programming from a number ofoutlets invarious cities and from numer-ous producers and to pipe that wideselection of viewingalternatives througha cable into the homes of subscriberswho pay a monthly fee to be able towatch a selection of shows far greater

July 1990

area , the cable company must ne gotiatea contract with the city or county inwhich it is to operate. In th ose con-tracts , in order to show the c ompany'sconcern for the community , as a nego-tiating tool to get the requi red leg al ap-proval , many of the compan ies offer toopen up one of the proposed channelson their systems to access by com-munity prog rammers . This means thatindividuals , organizat ions, or institu-tions within the cable company 's oper-

ations area can produce locally originat-ed programming and present it to thecompany fo r airing . That programmingonly has to meet minimal Federal Com-munications Commission requirements ,such as that itnot contain any obscenity or nud ity, and has to be non commer-cial in natu re. That is, the programscould not sell anything or soli cit dona-tions or funds of any kind from theviewer .

At the same time , across the nati on,there also exists something called thePublic Broadcasting System o r PBS.PBS isa netwo rk consisting ofhundredsof cooperating local broadcast stations,each of which receives funding from thenational office of the network, from cor -porate grants , and from individualswithin its broadcast area. These PBSlocal affiliate stations do not requireviewers to have a special cable attachedto their television set to receive them .They are broadcast stations whichsend a signal into the open air which canbe picked up by any individual within

American Atheist



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- to make a point - c ouldwrite something on it (sh ades ofthe Reverend Ful ton Shee n).But at least two other peop le,

Messrs . Murray and Th olen,had agreed to sit down at the pi ano Bythe due date , the ten needed programswere in the can and d elivered to

Capital Cable ,Everyone was conv inced that no onewas watching the progr am, that the setwas bad , that a single talk ing head , oreven two or three of them , was a turn-off, that the format was calculated tobore , and that the entire e ndeavourwould ultimately collapse , Dr, O'Hair,being half-Irishand damn s tubborn (t heother half is German - and n o one cantell those folks anything), adamantlypressed everyone to pro ceed.

Actuall y, people were watching. Whatwas said was so interesting, often so ex-citing, that it did not ma tter about theset. And pe ople heard fo r the first tim ein the nation what Athe ists actuallywanted to say . They were int rigued by it- and that made the differ ence, for th e Forum quickl y became a staple onAustin television .

That firs t old set i s a mem ory. Theconference room tapes fe atured a cam-era that cou ld only stare stra ight ahead.Those t iny immobile cam eras have beendefunct for years. The non e-too-s tablesmall floodlights are referred to only in

jokes .Now, when last contacted Alan Bu-shong was the well-paid executive direc -tor of an Oregon community telev isionsystem . And Madalyn O 'Hair seeming-lygoes on forever , still one of th e hostson the American Athe ist Forum ; JonMurray st illthe other . There was, ho w-ever, a major loss to the p rogram - andthe Atheist movement as a whole -when Gerald Tholen died o f a hea rtattack inApril 1987Also, Robin Mu rray-O'Hair, who was just f ifteen and in

North Carolina Chapter Director PatriciaVoswinkel was the first person to get the Forum aired outside of Austin. Tenyears after that breakthrough, the Fo-rum appears on over 120 cable systemsand is found in many television listings,such as this one from Long Beach, Cali-fornia .

range who has a television set and anytype of antenna . This is qu ite differentfrom cable programming for which indi -viduals must pay a monthly fee and havea physical cable installed and connectedto their televisions by the company pro -viding the service. From the beginningof American Atheist programs, therewas at times a good deal of confusionthat came about when members of theorganization wanted to view the pro-gram but either had no cable company

doing business in their area or simplydid not subscribe to the existing cableservice. Manyof these individualsthoughtthat the Public Broadcasting Systemwas the same as the public accesschannel on a cable company system .Persons who heard about the AmericanAtheist program would tune into theirlocal PBS affiliate station and not beable to find it and then be concernedand write to American Atheists . Theywould then have to be educated to thefact that cable television was d ifferentfrom public broadcast television . Thisconfusion stillpersists and pops up fromtime to time even to this day.

Ten more in the canGetting back to the story of the orig-

ination of Atheist cable programming ,there was, however, a beginning hazard .Capital Cable, it turned out , had to beconvinced that such a p rogram was nota fly-by -nightand dur ing the next thirteendays (by July 15) it was necessary to re-cord another nine shows, which were tobe turned over to the studio before the

final approval was given by Bushong 'ssuperiors . At $22 a tape, this meantthere would be an up-front expend itureof $220 . That was a formidable sum tenyears ago to squander on a possibility .

Dr. O'Hair was simply overwhelmed ;she sat in piles of newspape rs, frantical-lyclipping away. At f irst, no one - otherthan Dr . O'Hair and Bushong - wasconvinced that the show would fly . Atthis particular t ime, Jon Murray andGerald Tholen were on the road in amotor home organizing Chapters of

Austin , Texas

American Atheists. Theyhad been gone over threeweeks of a projected one-month tour of the coun-try. So it was that Dr .O'Hair scrambled help-lessly through enormouspiles of news clips, pullingtogether four-and-one -half hour's worth of unending talking.Stubbornly , patiently , laughing withthose who were laughing at her, she in -

sisted, It is going to go , while Bushongstood pat iently by , on camera . Thesound went out . The floodlights blew .The mic rophones would not work . Thelighting was bad. One of the cameras ,not working , was switched for another .And for seven more prog rams, every-one laughed when Dr . O'Hair sat downat the p iano. There were delays. Therewere malfunctions. The re were bustsand retakes . Then Jon Murray and Ge r-ald Tholen , arriving back at The Amer -ican Atheist Center , decided to come tothe rescue. The taping ofprogram num-ber nine was moved to the conferenceroom of the old Cente r. All three sat atone end of the conference table , and thecamera gave a clear v iew of the emptychairs opposite the three persons beingfilmed. Behind them a somewhat bat-tered , unframed green chalkboard hadbeen nailed to th e wall so that Dr . O'Hair

Gerald Tholen (1929 -1987) often addedhis wit and wisdom to the program .

July 1990 Page 21



boarding school outside of Texas then,now sits in the control room as the di-rector of the Forum. Occasionallywhen another gues t director is avail-able, she too is one of the hosts on the Forum .

Yes, that is what it is called now : the American Atheist Forum.

Somewhere . along the way the intro-ductory sentence of Welcome to thewonderful world of American Atheismwas changed to Hello there, I'm Mada-lyn O' Hair, back again with the Ameri-can Atheist Forum; and I'm Jon Murray,president of American Atheists - andI'm Robin Murray-O'Hair, editor of theAmerican Atheist magazine .

The ending has been changed from Thank you for listening, goodbye fornow to Remember that religion hascaused more misery to mankind, in ev-ery era ofhuman history, than any othersingle idea. Thank you for listening .Goodbye for now .

What were those programs? Theywere the ability of American Atheists tosay whatever they damned wellpleasedto say without censorship - an unheard-of privilege in the history of Atheismanywhere in the world .

Very slowly, and very reluctantly, thecable company began to make available

Page 22

A typical taping (counterclockwise fromupper left): moving the set into the stu-dio, setting up lighting, wiring the set forsound, filming the show, and the final

production as the audience sees it.

first a small, dirty, cluttered studiowherein one corner was cleared enoughto place several chairs and a plastic mar-ijuana-type plant for the two commen-tators . Sound and video mixers were inanother small room which one could seethrough a grimy window. The studio wasmoved again and still again as the yearswent by, and slowly more and betterequipment was furnished. With thegrowing technology, even the price ofthe video tape dropped, so that soon the

cost for each video cassette was a mere$10.00 .

Taking the show tothe Bible belt

Very quickly into the Forum history,it was felt that other cities which hadcommunity access programming shouldbe contacted to see ifthe Forum couldbe sent to air on them. The first outreachwas to all of the Chapters of AmericanAtheists, asking them what the situationwas in their cities and ifthey would helpto get the Forum on intheir local area .Patricia Voswinkel, then North Carolinadirector, called from Charlotte, NorthCarolina. A good segment of the citywas disgusted with how Jim and TammyBakker were making their presencesfelt Could cassettes of the AmericanAtheist Forum be sent to Charlotte?They could and they were . The first pro-grams aired in that city were on Chan-nel3, beginning on Tuesday, October 14,1980,at 6 :30 P.M. The Forum, then, wasbeing broadcast in two cities: Charlotte,

July 1990

North Carolina, and Austin , Texas. Bythis time, the program w as so wellaccepted in Austin that D r. O'Hair wasasked for two one-minute- and-thirty -second promos to be put on, at oth ertimes, on the channel . These began thesecond week of October 1980 .

Oh, it moved s lowly enoug h. By April1981 it was being s hown in Austin, inCharlotte, in Portland , in San Francisco,and network ing through New Jersey . ByMay 1982the Forum moved into New

York Ci ty. InSeptember, Pit tsburgh andRichmond, Virg inia, jo ined the e ver-growing Forum outreach . By No vem-ber seventeen cable statio ns were online.

Shirley Nelson, Arkansa s Chapter di-rector, also decided to help and, in 1982 ,built a bonafide set - a newscast- typedesk to be set in front of a backdropconsisting of shelves of books on eitherside of the green chalkboa rd. For just$1.00a foot, a used-book store providedenough book shells to give the appear-ance of books - and the Ame ricanAtheist Forum was into serious busi-ness .

Capital Cable soon requi red that any -one handling the equipment take acourse at the studio to learn both theuse and maintenance of the equ ipmen t.Very quickly a number of persons fromThe American Atheist Cente r werequalified . With courses on how to,lighting soon became manageable . Thestudio permitted use of its charactergenerator and of duplicat ing equipment

American Atheist



on a somewhat limited scale . Also, alongthe way a second camera was allocatedto the access studio. But there were sev-enteen cities in which the Forum wasshown , and then twenty, and then thirty,and the duplicating process became acritical problem . What limited facilitiesCapital Cable had were put on a first-come, first-served basis. Slowly TheAmerican Atheist Center was forced tobuy equipment . Also, the more stationsagreeing to air the program, the morecomplicated the process . The Ameri-can Atheist Forum was soon into multi-faceted rules , regulations, local spon-sorships, contracts , copyright laws ,scheduling . Someone needed to spendfulltime just handling the Forum , ship-ping tapes in and out , making extracopies .

Also by April of 1983itwas possible tobegin putting the Forum on one-hourhome VHS cassettes so that they couldbe distributed to Chapters or sold tomembers . In October 1983,The Centerdecided to make a substantial (for it) in-

vestment inthe Forum and purchased$12,500 in videotape dupl icating equip-ment . This consisted of two studio-qual-ity decks, monitors, and one editingcontroller unit to drive them. Itwas alsoin 1983that Gerald Tholen designed andbuilt a new , more sophisticated back-drop and news desk for the Forum programs . That set is still in use at thistime.

Increased production costsAust in Community Television was

growing and by this time its studio founda permanent home, moving into the sec-ond most sophisticated cable access studio in the nation - with a milliondollars ' worth of equipment there forlocal programmers to use .

Still, more equipment was needed atThe American Atheist Center as lessand less equipment-use time was avail -able at the studio due to the prolifera-tion of producers and users in the sys-tem. In April 1984,the Forum acquiredits own character generator (cost $1,625) .

Austin , Texas

Bythe end of that year the Forum wason forty cable outlets throughout thenation . But with that many programs tobe copied and sent out weekly, costs es-calated also - to about $1 ,600 a monthto send out 160of the cassettes . Soon,the Forum also bought its own micro-phones, of better quality .

By the end of 1984 it was becomingapparent that members of AmericanAtheists would be the biggest help in

getting the Forum on to cable accessstations and a call was put out solicitingthat help. The response was very grat-ifying;within about ten months the num-ber of outlets had grown from forty toseventy-one.

By January 1985, the Forum wasbeing sent to fifty cable outlets . A diffi-culty which developed was that thesecable access stations, often manned byvolunteers, were not returning cassettetapes after airing. When they sat on asmany as twenty to twenty-five tapes atany given station, this meant that asmany as one thousand tapes were notbeing regularly returned. At a cost offrom $10 .00 to $20.00 each , this wasslowly putting American Atheists into abind . Once again, members did come tothe rescue, volunteering to go to the sta-tions and pick up the tapes . This workedout very wel l.

Access cable was slowly improving inAustin, Texas, also , and soon there werethree cameras available , so that a diver-sity of angles could be used during the

July 19 90

Behind the scenes at a taping: RalphShirley (far left) keeps track of th esound and Robin Murray-O'Hair (lef t)directs.

Below: Taping American Atheist Co n-ventions has become an important pa rtof Forum production . American At h e-ists member Dave Evans has dona tedhis professional skills for this during thepast several years .

taping of the Forum . After movingfrom place to place , one s tudio was final-lyselected and the Forum wa s to havethe use of that for abo ut five years run-mng.

Reaching out to the millionsBy 1985i t was decided to videotape

the American Atheist Conven tions. Por-table video equipment was needed fo rthat , and at first rental equipment w as

used. But in 1987another $10 ,000 wa sinves ted in a Sony video camera andportable deck with a complete field l ight-ing kit and accessories with qualityheavy-duty shipping cases for all com -ponents . It was also in 1985 that the Forum was contacted by a group ofdeaf Atheists . Immediately a requestwas put in to obtain the services of aninterpreter from the Travis County Ser-vice for the Deaf for the programs . Thiswas begun in April of that year . Thecable stations were then rep orting to usthat the Forum could be seen by aminimal potential of 2 ,655,820 homes .The cost for this was about $1 ,000 amonth to restock videotapes , and abou t$700 a month for postage. That' s a littl eover six one hundredths of a cent perhome. Even so, $1 ,700 a month, plus thecost of a media coordinator 's-salary andthe investment which the Forum hadmade in the equipment up to this time ,was more than worth the cost .

The damn disclaimer haunted the Forum for many years, but finallyhalf-

Page 23



way through the decade of the 1980si tdid disappear in Austin. However, manyof the other cable stations used theirown disclaimers either before or afterthe program.

During the time that the Forum wasbeing produced, up to this point, a rep-resentative of American Atheists wassent to be in attendance at access pro-ducers conventions across the nation:in Fayetteville, Arkansas; Dallas, Texas;New Orleans, Louisiana.

In 1988with the Forum being shownon about one hundred cable systems,approximately five hundred cassetteswere shipped inand out each month. Bysummer of 1990that had climbed to 125stations needing shipment of 550 cas-settes each month. Even with the prac-tice of recording over older tapes - atleast a half dozen times - it is still nec-essary to purchase about one hundrednew tapes a month. In order to get thatmany out, more copying decks wereneeded and a purchase of about $30,000was allocated so that four copies could

be made simultaneously. Two VHS anda Beta deck were also necessary, plustwo three-quarter-inch editing decks. Inactual hours - since copying is doneone-half hour for one-half hour - 550cassettes takes over one hundred hours(actual copying time plus time to loadand unload machines and identify eachcassette). Record keeping, correspon-dence, boxing up tapes, and labeling forshipping take up more time than thepresent media coordinator has.

Does it play in Peoria?The Forum is very well received

across the nation. Each month it bringsin approximately one hundred newmembers to American Atheists - andcountless inquiries from which comesubscribers to the American Atheistmagazine, book purchasers, Chapterparticipants, and more and more con-ventioneers each year at the AnnualNationalAmerican Atheist Conventions.

The most amazing aspect of it all isthat in many small-town redneck cities

Page 24

At national and regional meetings ofAmerican Atheists, often a room is setaside for members who do not live inareas serviced by the Forum to seewhat all the excitement i s about . Heremembers take a break from the festivi-ties of the Grand Opening of the Amer-ican Atheist GHQ in 1988 to view the Forum.

such as El Cajon, California; ColoradoSprings, Colorado; Galesburg, Illinois;Ames, Iowa; Ludlow, Kentucky; Rock-ville, Maryland; Bloomington, Minne -sota - it plays ju st as well as it plays inNew York City, San Francisco, Chicago,Boston, Dallas, St. Louis, Portland,Miami, and Pittsburgh.

However, as the Forum outreachwas growing, so was the sophisticationof the cable systems to which it was be-ing sent . By mid-1988 about one-thirdhad installed automatic equipment . Thismeant that the AmericanAtheist Forumhad to be precisely tailored, and a better

quality videotape was demanded bymany stations. What cassettes left Aus-tin had to be ready to be inserted inautomatic replay equipment with ascore of other such tapes. Then, slowly,also more and more stations asked forfees ranging from $25.00 to $50.00 toshow the Forum tapes each week .The first such demand came from anupstate New York cable company.

During this entire period, AmericanAtheists had been encouraging theChapters of the organization to also

July 1990

qualify for programming on their localaccess cable stations. A number weresuccessful: Columbus, Ohio; Chicago,Illinois;San Diego, California; Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania; New Jersey. Sometimesthe programs had staying power; some-times they did not . Often in a Chapterarea, the national program needed to bedoctored to add a tailthat identified it ascoming from the Chapter there in orderto qualify to be shown in the city.

The situation improved inAustin also,

and in March 1990 the access cablecompany obtained three new televisioncameras and the picture quality im-

. .

• indicates cable sys-tems on which the American AtheistForum is broadcast.

provement in the Forum was immedi-ately evident . The cameras during thetwo prior years had been under suchheavy use from so many amateurs thatthey frequently were out of working or-der, and the programs were shot withonly two functioning cameras.

Also, as the Forum spread acrossthe nation, more and more Atheistswere concerned enough to attempt tosee that cable systems in their home-towns accepted the show. By 1990, forexample, members were able to place

DthA

American Atheist



the Forum, in April, in six cities, in-cluding Honolulu, Hawaii. Later in theyear eight more cities were added.American Atheists was also attempting,from the National Office, to procuremore stations, and this effort also result-ed in eighteen other cities being addedas outlets this year.

But what's on the program?Nothing has been said thus far about

the content of the American AtheistForum, which is now into its eleventhyear of programming. A wide variety oftopics has been covered throughout thehistory of the program . This is princi-pally due to the fact that hard (print)media from across the nation and aroundthe world provide most of the sourcematerial for the Forum. Members ofAmerican Atheists from every state ofthe Union keep a watchful eye out fornews items concerning separation ofstate and church or the insanity and in-sidious influence of organized religion .These individuals mail the printed media

clips in to the American Atheist Gen -eral Headquarters, where they aresorted and read , and therefrom topicalmaterials are selected to be covered oneach edition of the Forum. So, overthe years, the commentators on the Forum have talked about just everyimaginable newsworthy situation re-garding state /church separation and

olis scholar John Allegro was a guest onn Atheist Forum during his visit to Theeist Center in 1986.

Austin , Texas

the effect of religion on our culture.These news reporting-type programs

were generally either of a nature inwhich the entire thirty minutes was con -sumed concentrating on a single break-ing national news story or of a naturewhere the hosts reviewed a variety ofcurrent issues which had made thenews in a number of communities scat-tered in various states. Inaddition to thenews-reporting type of Forum, therewere programs which concentrated onhistorical material . Some of the histori-cal programs profiled a particular Athe-ist who was involved in pioneer workagainst religion, while others talkedabout the atrocities of the churches. In-dividual minority sects and cults wereexamined, both of the homegrownAmerican variety and those of foreignorigin, among them being the Krishnas,the Mormons, the Seventh-day Advent-ists' Scientologists, the Gideons, theMoonies, and New Agists. An oft-repeat-ed type of program in the series wasanalysis of court decisions on state /

church separation issues or a reportingon planned, recently initiated, or ongoinglitigation in which American Atheists,one ofits affiliates, or one ofits memberswas involved. Sometimes the litigantsthemselves appeared as guests on theprograms .

That brings up the subject of guests in general . Gerald Tholen was the firstguest, on program number 12 of theAmerican Atheist Television Series, andmany were to followhim inthe succeed-ing years of programming. Some of theguests were ordinary members ofAmer-ican Atheists from every walk of life inprograms that focused on the typical Atheist next door. Others of theguests were litigants, and some of themwere leaders of other Atheist or free-thought groups from outside ofthe Unit-ed States. There was even a Forumdone with representatives of the deafAtheist community, with a translatorsigning the interaction between hostand guest .

Since American Atheists held a national

July 1 99 0

While most Forum programs focus onissues of national concern , the intern a-tional Atheist scene does not go ne -glected. Interviews have been made wit hAmerican Atheist Convention speakerssuch as RonMarke (below), secretary o fthe Rationalist Association of Ne w

South Wales, Australia.

annual convention each year , it soon be-came a practice to have some o f thespeakers and guests of those conven-tions appear on Forum progra ms. Atfirst this was accomplished by as kingthem to come to Austin , Texas , on theirway to the convention city . Later on ,with the acquisition of new portable

equipment, entire conventions ofAmer-ican Atheists were shot on locat ion.That footage was edited back at theGeneral Headquarters into a series o f Forum programs featuring the pre-senters at any given annual conference .In this way , many persons ac ross thenation were able to share the education -al value of American Atheists ' annualmeetings.

There were Forum programs donewith contemporary authors who wereAtheists. Among the most notable wasa series of programs done with John M .Allegro from England, author ofa seriesof books about the translations of theDead Sea Scrolls.

The Forum was not beyond tacklingthe hottest of subjects. Numerous pro-grams were done concerning the W in-ter Solstice and other natural holidays injuxtaposition to Christian and Moslemobservances . Censorship, abortion ,women and the church , oaths, the TenCommandments, euthanasia, creation-ism, the FBI and Atheists, homosexual-

Page 25



What other caption could be appropriatefor this photo of Madalyn O'Hair than They all laughed when Isat down at thepiano ?

ity, Kosher foods, Zionism, JewishPACs, religion in the penitentiary sys -tem, the IRSand the church, the Vaticanand geopolit ics, the Boy Scouts, religionand Alcoholics Anonymous , Pedophiliain the Parish, Atheism in the Blackcommunity, WallStreet, Madison Avenueand religion, and parochiaid have beenjust a few of the other areas that the Forum has delved into in its manyweeks ofair time. No topic was taboo asthe hosts presented the most contro-versial of topics from an Atheist view-point .

In addition to the on-location Forums which were recorded at con-

vention sites, some telephone inter-views have been conducted on variousprograms w ith guests who joined intothe conversation via voice alone,

The televangelists and the fundamen-talist denominations, as wellas their po-litical offspring such as The Mora lMajority , have been targets of many aninvestigative reporting effort on the Forum . Falwell, Schlafly , Jarvis and

the like have been exam ined by thepanel of Forum hosts .

It can be said , overall, that the mostunique thing about the AmericanAtheist Forum has been its abili ty tobring to the viewer a spectrum of topicsand opinions which could not be hadfrom any other med ia source . Time andtime again the Forum covers eventsand brings forth information on topicsthat would never have been allowed toappear, by the powers that be , in main -line media . The unique, contemporaryinformation provided by the Forum can simply not be matched by any otheroutreach, save perhaps the AmericanAtheist magazine . It is the chance of alifetime for Atheists to report on theworld around them as they see it and letthe chips fall where they may . The American Atheist Forum is truly anadventure infree speech unlike any thatorganized Atheism has seen in its longhistory .

For some time, American Atheistshas been concerned that there would

Page 26

what they want to say . They no longerneed to go on radio tal k back showsto be insulted, abused, ba ited, or berat-ed. Appearances no longe r need to be aseries of confrontat ions w ith religiousrepresentatives attemp ting to hog all ofthe t ime that is left over a fter commer -cials are g iven. The re is no need for ahost ile host who is a devil's advocate against us. We need none of that.

In most recent yea rs the media hasadopted the idea of f airness and ofhearing both sides . T his criterion offairness , howeve r, is only applied to anAthe ist appea rance a nd is us ed to dragin priests , ministers, rabbis, and preach-ers of every st ripe to sho ut down theAtheis t. No Athe ist has e ver seen a time

when an Athe ist is deliberately broughton to a prog ram when o ne of god's crea-tures is slated for an inte rview. Th emdays is gone forever . Now, we have ourown program - one day we must haveour own televis ion station , financed we llenough that we can bou nce program-ming from it off satellite to the world.

Right now , there a re ove r seven hun-dred cable compan ies which providecommun ity access p rogramming op-portunities. The Forum i s a long wayfrom be ing on a ll of them. T here wereover f ive thousand cab le companieswhen last we had informat ion. Not allcable compan ies are requ ired to providepublic access facilities - that depend -ingon the franch ise negot iations be tweenthe city and the cab le compa nies. Butthe percentage of them that do p rovideis simply an ind ication that this is un-popula r with the cable systems .

American Atheists plans to do what itcan for as long as it can - and i fyou willhelp, in your city , they w ill not laughwhen we sit down to play the piano. ig

be several reversals in the Forum pro-gram: more and more stations were de-manding local origination of program-ming ; more and more stations we re de-manding money in o rder to use thetapes ; more and more stat ions were de-mand ing a type of quality improvementfor wh ich American Atheists did nothave equipment . Also, religious organ i-zations were slowlygobbling up this out-let. However, the Forum continues tohold and to grow , and by the end of 1990it should be airing on 125cable channelsor systems . Very often one cable systemspreads out in suburbs to service up toa dozen towns , so that our outreach isactually to perhaps as many as two hun-dred different towns or cities.

The access (community) broadcast-ing which is built into most cable sys-tems is actively disliked by the system,since it is not revenue producing and itcosts each local cable company money.American Atheists has by and largeadopted the attitude of Gather yerosebuds while ye may, for the systemis certain to go down under the assaul tsupon it .

The unfortunate thing is that Ameri-cans have been taught that televis ion is free and the Atheist programs do notengender in the Atheists who viewthemthe earnest desire to rush to a mailboxwith a check to help to susta in them . Itis conservatively estimated , includingsalary, overhead , cost of tape , postage ,prorating the cost of the equipmentover the years that it was purchased ,.repair, and storage , that the Forum isnow costing about $50 ,000 a year -$4,150 a month .

This is a piddling amount for the out-reach that the Forum has. The Forumgives to Athe ists the opportunity to say

July 1990 American Atheist



News and Comments

Who's in charge of yoursoul - you, god,Missouri, or theSupreme Court of theUni ted States?

SUM MAR Y: In Cruzan v . Director Mis-sou ri Departmen t of Heal th the .p aren ts o f a w oma n i n a pers istent v eg-e ta tiv e state as the resu lt of an auto-mobi le acc ident asked the SupremeCourt to dec ide whether a Missour istatute preventing them from

w ithholding further medical treatmentfr om the ir daughter (thus causing herdeath) was constitutional or violatedthe r ight to privacy and informed con-sent . The Supreme Court held, in ef -fect , w ith the Roman Catholic church 'sdoc tr ine of the right to life and then eed to leave suc h dec isions to god orfa te . The dissenting just ices issued bit-te r and strongly worded objections tothe majo rity's logic .

Austin , Te xas

The involuntary releaseof the soul

.,

s everyone had predicted , the~ June 25 Right to Die decision of

the Supreme Court reverberatedthrough the nation . The head linesscreamed, Limited R ight to Die ,States may prohibit patients' right to

die, Doctors rip 'right-to-die ' edict , saymore suicides could result , 'Right -to-die' legislation urged in Illino is. Thecommotion would have been as g reatno matter which side won .

But in this instance , a particularly ap -

pealin g, emotion-inducing set ofc ircum-stances roused sympathy for the familyconcerned .

On 11January 1983 , Nancy Cruzanlost control of her car as she traveleddown Elm Road in Jasper County, M is-sour i. The veh icleoverturned and Cruzanwas discove red lying face down in aditch without detectable resp iratory orcardiac funct ion. The paramed ics whoarrived at the scene of the accident wereable to restore her breathing and hea rt-beat , and she was transported to thehospital in an unconscious state . Therea neurosurgeon diagnosed cerebralcont usions compounded by ano xia(lack of o xygen) to the brain . Later acourt determ ined from medical expertsthat pe rmanent brain damage generallyresults after six minutes in an anox icstate. Itwas e stimated from the evidencethat Cru zan had been o xygen dep rivedfrom twel ve to four teen minutes . Theventricles filledwith cereb rospinal fluidin the area where the b rain degeneratedand her cereb ral co rtical atrophy is ir -revers ible, permanent , progressive, andongoing . She is a spastic quadriplegic;her fou r extremities are contracted withirreversible muscu lar and tendon dam -age. She is diagnosed as in a persistentvegetative state. But the medical teamstates , She is not dead . She is notterminally ill.

The M issou ri statute co ntains a defi-nition of death .

Mo. Rev. Stat . §194.005 (1986 ).For all legal purposes, the occur -rence of human death shall be de-

July 1990

termined in acco rdance wi th theusual and cus tomary standards ofmedica l practice, provid ed thatdeath shall no t be dete rmined tohave occu rred unless the followingminimal conditions h ave beenmet:

(1) When resp iration a nd circu-lation are not artific ially main-tained , there is an i rreversible ces-sation of spontaneous respirationand circulat ion; and

(2) When respiration and circu-lation are artificially ma intained,and the re is total and irrevers iblecessat ion of all b rain function , in-cluding the b rain stem and thatsuch dete rmination is made by alicensed physic ian.

It was dete rmined that Cruzan obvi-ously d id not fit the first provision ofthestatute, since she was breathing on he rown and he r blood circulation continued.Therefore she was not dead.

Dr. Fred Plum, who coined the term persistent veg etative state , describedthat condition in another co urt action 'as follows :

Vegeta tive s tate d escr ibes abody wh ich is functioning entirelyin terms of its internal controls . Itmaintains temperature. It main-tains heart beat and pulmonaryventilation. It m aintains di gestiveactivity. I t maintains reflex activityofmus cles and nerves for low levelcondit ioned res ponses . But thereis no behavi oral evide nce of eit herself-awareness o r awareness ofthe su rround ings in a learnedmanner .

Cruzan was comatose for three weeksbut then p rogressed to an unconsciousstate , and surgeons implanted a gas-trostomy feeding a nd hydration tube

lln re Jobes , 108 N.J. 394, 529 A2d 434(1987) .

Page 27



News and Comments

(withthe consent of her then husband) .About this time, the state of Missouriassumed the cost of her care. After itbecame apparent that Nancy Cruzanhad no chance of regaining her mentalfaculties, her parents asked hospital em-ployees to terminate the artificial nutri-tion and hydration procedures. Allagreed that such a removal would causeher death. The hospital refused to hon-or the request without court approval .

Not her parents choice,but the state sThe state court found that a person in

Cruzan's condition had a right to refuseor direct the withdrawal of death pro-longing procedures. It also found that(at age twenty-five) she had told a friendthat if she were to become sick or in-jured, she would not desire to continueto live in such a condition as that inwhich today she finds herself.

The state appealed the decision to theSupreme Court of Missouri. Rememberthat the state of Missouri is a RomanCatholic stronghold and that the churchis opposed to the right to die. By thistime, Nancy Cruzan had been in a veg-etative state for five years .

The Supreme Court ofMissouri held-that although the person had a right torefuse medical treatment, substitutedjudgment on her behalf (her parents'request to have the plug pulled) wasinappropriate.

[N]o person can assume thatchoice for an incompetent in the

absence ofthe formalities requiredunder Missouri's Living Willstatutes ...

The court also held that [b]road policyquestions bearing on lifeand death aremore properly addressed by represen-tative assemblies than by the courts.

2Cruzan v . Harmon, 760 S.W .2d 408 (enb ane, M o. 1988).

Page 28

Informedconsentand the right to die

This time the parents appealed, andthe case was accepted by the SupremeCourt of the United States. It was ar-gued on 6 December 1989, and a deci-sion was rendered by that body on 25June 1990, in the matter of Cruzan, byher parents and coguardians, v. Direc-tor , Missouri Department of Health. Atthat time, Cruzan had been in her vege -tative state for seven and one-half years.

Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whomWhite, O'Connor, Scalia, and Kennedyjoined, wrote the opinion .

The Court gave a short history of thedoctrine of informed consent, begin-ning with common law way back when.Inthose times, even the touching ofoneperson by another without consent andwithout legal justification was held to bea battery - that is, if one was a White,male landowner of considerable wealthand import . Women, children, Blacks,and the common class could be dealtwith at will.But, ofcourse, the SupremeCourt glossed over that part of historywithout a fare-thee-well, and quoted aturn of the century doctrine that

[n]o right is held more sacred,or is more carefully guarded, bythe common law,than the right ofevery individual to the possessionand control ofhis own person , freefrom allrestraint or interference ofothers, unless by clear and un-questionable authority of law .3

From this the notion of bodily integ-rity has been embodied in the require-ment that informed consent is gener-ally required for medical treatment .Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870-1938) formalized this doctrine when hewas on the Court of Appeals of NewYork.

3Union Pacific R . Co. v. Botsford, 1 41 U.S.2 50 ( 19 01 ).4Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospi-tal, 21 1NY 1 25 , 1 05N.E. 92 (1914) .

July 1 990

Every human being of adultyears and sound mind has a rightto determine what shall be donewith his own body; and a surgeonwho performs an operation with-out his patient's consent commitsan assault, for which he is liable indamages.

In the words of the Supreme Court , [t]he logical corollary of what is called the doctrine of informed conse nt

is that the patient generally pos-sesses the right not to consent , torefuse treatment .

The family s right to say noThe only significant case before that

of Cruzan was that of young KarenQuinlan, who suffered the same kind ofsevere brain damage as the result , also,of anoxia, and who then entered a veg-etative state. Her father sought judic ialapproval to disconnect her respirator .The New Jersey Supreme Court grantedthat relief .5 In that case, however , thedecision was made that Karen Qu inlanhad a right of privacy grounded in thefederal Constitution to terminate treat-ment and that this superseded thestate's interest . Toexplain how it reachedthis conclusion, s ince she was beyondthe ability to communicate , the cour theld that the only practical way to pre-vent the loss of such a right of privacyof any individual who was incompetentto decide was to allow her guardian andfamily to decide whether she would

exercise it under these circumstances .Since Quinlan , in 1976, most courtshave based a right to refuse treatmenton either the common law right to in-formed consent, or on the constitu-tional privacy right, or both. When itwas obvious that the patient could notmake such a decision, a court would -here or there - adopt a substituted

SIn re Quinlan , 70 N.J. 10,355 A.2d 6 47, ce rt.d en ie d (1 97 6).

A m er ic an A th ei st



News and Comments

judgment of diverse family or guardi-ans. At all times, however, there havebeen other fringe considerations:

• the need for preservation oflife

• the protection ofthe interestsof innocent third parties

• the prevention of suicide• the maintenance ofthe ethical

integrity of the medical profession

It should be remembered that a phy-sician terminating a life,or hospital per-sonnel, could be charged with murder,as could any family member who delib-erately pulled a plug.

The right to privacyIn the Cruzan case, the legal issue of

constitutional privacy was stressed bythe lawyers representing her right . Be-cause ofthis the U.S . [Roman] CatholicConference entered an amicus curiaebrief opposing the position that the caseshould be decided in favor of constitu-

tional privacy and unrestricted personalautonomy. The church feared such adecision, for it was on this basis that theRoe v. Wade 6 decision had been based.The church felt that the Cruzan casewould only extend the principle of pri-vacy and would lead to legal euthanasiaand suicide.

In 1981a New York Court of Appealsdeclined to base a right to refuse treat-ment on a constitutional privacy right,since the informed consent doctrinewas adequate. In that case, again one ofbrain damage from anoxia, the eighty-three-year-old patient had made manystatements that he did not want to bemaintained in a vegetative coma by useof a respirator . However, a man whohad been profoundly retarded most ofhis life,and therefore had made no suchstatements, was kept alive by the court .The theory was that an incompetent

6410U.S. 11 3, 9 3 S .C t. 705, 35 L.Ed. 2d 147(1973).

Austin , Texas

person maintained a right to refusetreatment and that such treatment mustcontinue since the incompetent couldnot refuse it . The alternative, that thenow incompetent person could have re-fused the treatment at the first instantwas not approached . The incompetentis held to accede to a fait accompli overwhich he had no dominion when it wasbegun. Nonetheless, the courts held itwas best to err infavor ofpreserving life.

By this time, other distinctions were

being noted:• the distinction between ac-

tively hastening death by terminat-ing treatment and passively allow -ing a person to die of a disease

• treating individuals as an ini-tial matter versus withdrawingtreatment later

• ordinary versus extraordinarytreatment

• treatment by artificialfeedingversus other forms of life-sustainingmedical procedures

One California court, however, didhave the integrity to acknowledge that to claim that [a patient's] 'right tochoose' survives incompetence isa legalfiction at best .

After reviewing the above theoriesillustrated by a dozen or more citedcases, the Supreme Court went straightto the issue:

This isthe first case inwhich we[the Supreme Court] have beensquarely presented with the issueofwhether the United States Con-stitution grants what isin commonparlance referred to as a right tod·e.

The rights of the incompetentThe Supreme Court then fell back

upon the Fourteenth Amendment, whichprovides that no state shall deprive anyperson of life, liberty, or property, with-out due process of law. Well, what thehell, any legislative body - federal,

J uly 1 990

state, county, or city - has written andcan, does, and will write laws by thethousands. The last four words citedcan take away the rights of any humanbeing. But, once stating this, the Courtthen opined that a competent personhas a constitutionally protected libertyinterest in refusing unwanted medicaltreatment (emphasis added) . TheCourt then acceded that itwould assumethat the Constitution would grant acompetent person a constitutionally

protected right to refuse lifesav ing hy-dration and nutrition. The Cruzan fam-ily was simply petitioning the Court tohold that an incompetent person shouldpossess the same right as a competentperson. This the Court declined to do :

The difficulty with the [Cruzanfamily's] claim is that in a sense itbegs the question : an incompetentperson is not able to make an in-formed and voluntary choice toexercise a hypothetical right to re-fuse treatment or any other right .

Such a right must be exercisedfor her, ifat all, bysome sort ofsur-rogate.

The state ofMissouri, by law,has rec-ognized that a surrogate may act for thepatient, but has established a procedur-al safeguard to assure that the decisionof the surrogate conforms to the wishesexpressed by the patient while the pa-tient was competent . That safeguard is clear and convincing evidence as astandard of proof of the desires of thepatient .

Then the question before the SupremeCourt became whether the UnitedStates Constitution forbids the estab-lishment of this procedural requirementby the state.

What rights a state may haveWhat rights does a state have? It may

protect and preserve human life - andthe state's commitment to this is shownin the laws which treat homicide as acrime inevery state ofthe Union. Infact,

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News and Comments

Clear and convincing evidenceJustice Brennan filed a dissenting

opinion inwhich Marshall and Blackmunjoined. The dissenting justices posedthe question before the Supreme Courtina different way than did the majority :

[W]hether the Due ProcessClause allows Missouri to requirea now-incompetent patient in anirreversible persistent vegetativestate to remain on life-support

absent rigorously clear and con-vincing evidence that avoiding thetreatment represents the patient'sprior, express choice.

The Court then listed the evidencethat had been given. A longtime friend,co-worker, and housemate talked toNancy Cruzan for several hours oneevening when her own sister became illsuddenly and died during the night . Thefamily had been told that had she livedshe would have been in a vegetativestate. Nancy Cruzan's grandmotherhad died just a few months before . Avegetative state oflivingwas the topic ofconversation, and Ms. Cruzan had saidthat she hoped her familyknew that shewouldn't want to liveas a vegetable. Shedid not want to lie in a bed and not beable to move or to do anything for her-self . Since it was usually up to the fam-ilyto say whether one would liveor die,she preferred her familyto know she didnot want to liveas a vegetable. In regardto her grandmother's death, she hadsaid it was better that her grandmother

had not been brought back from a crit-icalnear point ofdeath by medical treat-ment .

The dissenting justices saw no evi-dence that the state had to the contrarythat it might call clear and convincing.When faced with evidence such asabove, the Missouri Supreme Court dis-missed the statement as unreliable onthe ground that it was an informally ex-pressed reaction to other people's med-ical problems.

Nancy Cruzan's sister, her mother,

Austin, Texas

and another of her friends testified thatNancy would be horrified at the stateshe isin, would want to take that burdenoff the family,and would want to discon-tinue hydration and nutrition. Nancy'smother testified,

Nancy would not want to be likeshe is now. If .it were me up thereor Christy [her sister] or any ofus,she would be doing for us what weare trying to do for her. Iknow she

would, . .. as her mother .Her sister Christy testified that when

a niece was stillborn (but would havebeen badly damaged if she had lived),Nancy had said that it was better thatthe baby had been stillborn and did nothave to face the possible life of mereexistence.

The liberty interestThe Constitution ofthe United States,

these dissenting justices, Brennan, Mar-shall, and Blackmun, see as protectingfundamental rights, and if a state sig -nificantly interferes with the exercise ofsuch a fundamental right, that interfer-ence must be upheld by sufficiently im-portant state interests . Any evidentiaryrule of clear and convincing evidenceadopted by a state must meet thesestandards if it significantly burdens afundamental liberty interest .

Earlier in 1990the Court had held thatthe Due Process Clause of the Four-teenth Amendment conferred a signifi-cant liberty interest on a competent

person who wanted to avoid unwantedmedical treatment . 8 Ifa competent per-son has a constitutional right to avoidunwanted medical care, the right mustbe fundamental and available also to anincompetent person. The question thenreduces to not whether an incompetenthas constitutional rights, but how suchrights may be exercised. To deny [the]

8Washington v. Harper, 11 0 S.Ct. 1028(1990).

July 1990

exercise [of that right] because thepatient is unconscious or incompeten twould be to deny the right .

The treatment to which Nancy Cruza ncontinues to be subject - artificial nu-trition (commercially prepared formu -las, not fresh food) and hydration - isnot treatment of which she approved .Neither artificial treatment nor an yother form of medical treatment avail-able today can cure or in any way ame-liorate her condition. She is irreversibly

vegetative; devoid of thought, emot ion,and sensation; permanently and com -pletely unconscious. She is incon tinentin bowel and bladder. All four of he rlimbs are severely contracted ; her f in-gernails cut into her wrists . The Presi-dent's Commission? approved the with-drawal of life-support equipment fromirreversibly vegetative pat ients, usingthe rationale:

[T]reatment ordinarily aims tobenefit a patient through preserv-ing life, relieving pain and suffer-ing, protecting against disability ,and returning maximally effectivefunctioning . If a prognosis of per-manent unconsciousness is cor-rect, however, continued treat-ment cannot confer such benefits.Pain and suffering are absent, asare joy , satisfaction, and pleasure.Disability is total and no return toan even minimal level of social orhuman functioning is possible.

Therefore , no state interest can pos-

sibly outweigh the rights of an individu-al in Nancy Cruzan's position. No goodcan be obtained here by Missouri's insis-tence that she remain on a life-supportsystem. Society as a whole willnot ben-efit; no third party 's situation willbe im-proved; and no harm to others will be

9President's Commission for the Study ofEthical Problems in Medicine and Biomedi-cal and Behavioral Research , Deciding toForego Life Sustaining Treatment (1983).

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ews and omments

To decide ... that medical treat-ment once undertaken must becontinued i rrespective of its lackof success or benefit to the patientin effect g ives one 's body to med-ical scien ce without their [sic]consent .

Preserving l ife withou t regard to quality

Just ice Stevens , reviewing this , feltthat the sta te supreme court had simplyignored every aspect of the case :

• Nancy Cruzan had no interestin cont inued treatment

• she had a liberty interest inbeing free from unwanted treat-ment

• the cessat ion of t reatmentwould have no adverse impact onthird parties

• no reason existed t o doubtthe go od faith of her parents

Given all of that, what could possibl y

be the basis for the state 's insisting uponcontinued med ical treatment ? Espe cial-lywhen the appellate court igno red thetrial court 's conclusions ? The statereplied:

The state 's concern with thesanctity of liferests on the princi -ple that l ifeis precious and worthyof prese rvation withou t regard toits qualit y.

If that sounds familiar to you , it is be -cause the Roman Catholic church usesthis phrase continually in its battleagainst abortion .

The decis ion in the Supreme Court ofMissou ri was 7 -3. The three dissentingjudges found Nancy Cruzan 's interestscompelling . They agreed with the trialcourt 's evaluation of state policy andheld that a competent or an incompe-tent Nancy Cruzan had a right to dieand that the state should not be calledupon to be the decision maker . Theiropinion held :

Austin, Texas

[Nancy Cruzan] is unable to ex-press he rself or to do anything atall to alter her situation . Her pa-rents , who are her closest rela -tives, are best able to feel for herand to decide what is best for her .The state should not substitute itsdecision for theirs ....

[The state] sub jects Nancy andthose close to her to cont inuoustorture which no family should beforced to endure .

Stevens agreed :

... Missouri 's regulation is anunreasonable intrus ion upon tra-ditionally p rivate matters encom-passed within the liberty protectedby the Due Process Cla use.

He then turned to a crit icism of themajor ity's opinion in the case . Thetheme of his disapproval was that Cru-zan's liberty interest was waived be-cause she was incompetent to exerciseit and pu t into the hands of the state leg-islature instead of those o f her family ,her guardian , and an impartial judge infront ofwhom allev idence regarding thesituation had been presented , all ofwhom were better qualified to makesuch a pe rsonal decis ion. Stevens feltthat the integrity of life is so funda-mental and p rotected by more thanone explicitly granted Cons titutionalright, th at it was in a private realm offamilylifewh ich the state cannot enter. Additional ly, the Court has many deci-sions which recognize that the libertyto make the decisions and choices con-stitutive of pr ivate li fe is ... fundamen -tal to our 'concept of ordered liberty .' He then went on to c ite half a do zencases which protected sanctity , and in-dividualprivacy , of the human body . Allof these , he op ined, illustrated the rightto be free from unwanted life-sustain ingmedica l treatment .

These considerations cast intostark rel ief the injustice , and un-

Ju ly 1 99 0

consti tutional ity, of Missou ri'streatmen t of Nancy Beth C ruzan.... Missouri 's objection [to a trialcourt 's orde r to terminate the life -sustaining t reatment] subord i-nates Nancy's body , her family,and the lasting signif icance of herlife to the St ate's own in terests.The dec ision we rev iew th ereby in-terfe res with constitution al inter-ests of the highest o rder ....

Missouri 's int rusion up on thesefundamental liberties must . . .[show] a legitimate state end. Mis-sour i asse rts that its policy is relat-ed to a s tate inte rest in the protec-tion of life . In my view, howeve r, i tis an eff ort to define life , ratherthan to pro tect it, that i s the heartof Miss ouri's policy. Missour i ...[equates ] her life with the biolog i-cal persistence of h er bodily func -tions.

But Cruzan is not simply incompe-tent , she is in a persistent vegetat ive

state . She has no possibility of r ecoveryand no cons ciousness. For the Court todiscuss the q uality of life that she may enjoy when one looks at the de f-inition in both the United S tates Const i-tution and the D eclaration of Indepen-dence , Stevens fe els tha t the State'sunflagg ing determination to perpetuat eNancy Cruzan's physical exi stence isreally not an attempt to preserve thesanctit y of life.

Contrar y to the Cou rt's sugge s-tion, Missouri 's protecti on of lifeina form abstracted from the l ivingis . . . aberrant. . . . [its] dec isionis anomalous .

Stevens then p roceeds t o the point o fthe major ity's decision: its endo rsemen tof Missour i's standa rd of clear andconvincing e vidence .

The c ritical question , however,isnot how to prove the controll ingfacts but rather what p roven facts

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ews and omments

should be controlling. In my view,the constitutional answer is clear:the best interests ofthe individual,especially when buttressed by theinterests of all related third par-ties, must prevail over any gener-al state policy that simply ignoresthose interests .... The failure ofMissouri's policyto heed the inter-ests of a dying individual with re-spect to matters so private isample evidence of the policy's

illegitimacy.Stevens sees the results ofthe major-

ity's decision as being that chronicallyincompetent persons have no constitu-tionally cognizable interests at all, andso are not persons within the meaning ofthe Constitution, which is patently un-constitutional .

We should have controlThe media coverage of the decision

was interesting. Associated Press newsservice simply noted that the SupremeCourt emphasized that the power ofdecision-making regarding removal oflife-sustaining treatment for persons inirreversible comas was to be left to thelegislatures of the individual states.Right wing religious groups were re-ported as callingthe decision a decisivevictory for the right of incompetent pa-tients to receive basic medical care andtreatment to prolong their lives. TheAmerican Medical Association, repre-senting 280,000 of the nation's doctors ,felt that the decision was an intrusion

into the doctor-patient relationship.The chairman of the board of regents ofthe 68,000-member American Collegeof Physicians, responded that Weshould have control over what happensto us, which hardly indicates who con-trols what happens to their patients .The parents of Nancy Cruzan simplyleft a message on their telephone an-swering machine that they would haveno comments.

Following the news of the decision, anew organization called Death with

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Dignity was formed in Seattle, Wash-ington, to put the matter of pulling theplug before the Washington state legis-lature. However, a similar group in Cal-ifornia, in 1988 , was unable to obtainenough signatures for Initiative legisla-tion. Meanwhile, Time magazine 11wrotea sympathetic endorsement of Rehn-quist's decision calculated to bring acompassionate understanding of hisposition. But in regard to the Cruzansand their daughter Nancy, Time, Rehn-

quist, and the Court majority reallydidn't give a damn .Although the Supreme Court was

very careful not to introduce an iota ofreligion into the decision, and althoughthe state of Missouri has quite secularterms in its laws, everyone involvedknows that what is at issue here is reallythe Roman Catholic notion of death -and the soul . Under the doctrine of re-spect for life, any action likelyto causeor hasten death is unacceptable to thechurch. Recently Pope John Paul IIen-larged on this idea, holding that neitherindividuals nor society are permitted toendanger life ,whatever the benefits thatmight possibly accrue as a result . Thedeliberate termination ofanyone's earth-ly existence is not acceptable.

Roman Catholic moral theology of-fered its opinion in the amicus curiaebrief which it filed in this case. It cen-tered upon the principle of respect forhuman life . Succinctly, this holds thatgod gives lifeand god determines whenit is completed, and he is not pulling theplug on Nancy Cruzan, so no one else

may.The national response to the SupremeCourt did not abate and it may well bethat the people of the nation no longerwillaccept what that Court determinesto be the American way of life - or of

110tto Friedrich , A Limited Right to Die , Time, 9 July 1990,p. 59 .12Inhis 14 December 1989address to a con-ference at the Pontifical Academy of Sci-ences, in Rome.

July 1990

death. Within the month after the rul ing,300,000 persons had contacted theSociety for the Right to Die asking fo rlegal forms which they could execute incase they also might reach such a state.InMassachusetts, the governor signe d alaw authorizing patients to name su rro-gate decision makers in matters of med-ical care . Legislation was mov ing for-ward in other states .

By August, the Cruzans had won theright to appear again ina lower (p robate )

court attempting to get around the deci-sion. This time they were mak ing cer-tain that they did have enough witnessesto prove that their daughter wou ld notdesire to be kept aliveunder the circum -stances in which she was. Three e xtrawitnesses had been found . It was ap par-ent that scores of perfect strange rswould have been willingto help both theparents and the pat ient. In September ,the state of Missouri withdrew f rom thecase . On December 13,the right to pullthe feeding tube was granted , and it wasremoved the follow ing day . But the or-deal of the parents was to cont inue asfundamentalists and (curiously) ant i-abortionists set up camp outside thehospital to picket , pray , even storm thehospital . There was a slow and agoniz-ing additional wait for Nancy Cruzan didnot die until December 26 . One wonderswhy the probate judge did not call for aquick lethal injection, why the smallcurled up body had slowly to starve todeath. But mercy is not an attr ibute ofthe human animal when religious dogmais in issue . Several of the nurses in fact

openly declared that they hoped thatNancy Cruzan would die painfully as afitting punishment for her parents whowanted to killher . Her death , however,was apparently peaceful . Although thatwas the termination of her life, unac-countably, a minister in a forty -five-minute service guaranteed her parentsthat they were only temporarily left be-hind and that they should recognizethe hope of resurrection . - MadalynO'Hair ~

American Atheist



main, all of these pernicious religionswere to be completely and utterly for-saken from the human mind, the salutaryeffect thus produced by the creation ofsuch a vacuum would , inand ofitself , bea boon to relish. So why the need of anyreplacement? Religion's nonexistence isecstasy enough, and what other benef-icent gifts could not help but accruefrom its disappearance .

R . Murray-O Hair editor of the

American Atheist, gives her view:Several years ago, I began to have aninterest in one of the most challengingactivities known to humankind: garden-ing in central Texas . As I look back onit, when I first started to garden, Ithought in my beginner's ignorance thatall there was to it was putting plants inthe ground . I quickly learned my lesson .

Since my ear ly attempts at gardening,I have spent many hours on my kneespulling out weeds . But ifsomeone wereto ask me what I planned as replace -ments for crabgrass and stinkweed , Iwould think that it was as inappropriatea question as asking what I wanted toput in the place of the black spot fungusand aphids on my rose bushes . I do notview weeding as a negative activity, butmerely a necessary task to ensure thatunwan ted, and sometimes dangerous,plants do not overwhelm and kill thebeautiful and useful .

In the same way, the consideration offinding a replacement for religion hasnever entered my head . Rather I amconcerned w ith what religion has been

and is choking out of existence . Thinkwhat might flower if not overshadowedby religion.

Herb Ault a retired Florida school-teacher answers:

Since religious faith is abject denial ofone's capacity to reason, I wouldn 'thave to put anything in its place .Nature 's laws , which are quite pragmat-ic, have a high price for an intellectualvacuum , too, and man has evolved asthe supreme being inthe known universe

Page 36

because of his superior degree of intel -ligence . That intelligence is suppressedor denied with religious indoctrination.What belongs in that vacuum createdby relig ious belief is common sense .That is what nature intended . Unfortu-nately, however, the priesthood hascrippled man 's ability to tell the differ-ence between fact and fantasy . It doesn'tlook l ike there is go ing to be any open-ingfor common sense inthe near future ,at least not before mankind has paid a

severe price for selling his intelligence toa god. The first duty of each man is toobey the laws of nature , but he ca nnotdo that when the laws to which he bowsare above nature or supernatural .

Joe Wanner a professional modeland magician, makes his point:

For many years, Iran and Iraq foughta holy war . In Lebanon, Christiansbattled those who weren 't. Indians arekillingeach other in the streets becauseMoslems, Sikhs, and Hindus can't getalong . Jews and anti-Jews regularlyattack each other in Israel . Irish Catho-lics and Protestants both pra ise theChristian god while they destroy eachother. Countless numbers of men,women, and children have been mur-dered throughout history with religionas the root cause of the bloodshed .

Ifa doctor says you have cancer , youdon't ask what to put in its place. Youjust get rid of it , and the sooner thebetter

Bill Restemeyer a New York City

computer programmer, replies:Jeez, that really is a tough one . Let'ssee ... We could establish a Ministryof Truth to combat the discoveries ofscientists and archaeologists , a M inistryof Peace and Freedom to fight thefeminists and civilrights advocates andto keep the people generally stirred upagainst each other, and a Ministry ofFulfillment to make sure that anyoneattempting a pursuit of happiness doesn 't actually achieve it (heaven for-bid) . We'd have to add a few new laws ,

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like mandatory lobotomies and circ um-cisions for all children, lest they le arn tothink critically or enjoy sex . We couldcommission Stephen K ing and D avidLynch to collaborate on a syn thesis ofHitler 's diar ies, the works ofthe Marquisde Sade , and Mothe r Goose to replacethe Bible.We'd certa inly have to enlargethe government bureaucracy t o use upthe increased ta x revenue wh ich wou ldcome from prev iously e xempt proper -ties . But, never mind, you 've convinced

me: we could never accom plish thesethings as completely as religi on has.

Robert K . Multer a New H ampshirereader adds:

Religion has no place in m y life.Irely on science , personal kn owled ge,

and experience. They answer my ev eryquestion about how to beha ve.

Isn't that what most peop le do thesedays when they really need results?Don 't you? Do you turn to science , orreligion , for instruct ion or adv ice abou twhat to eat or wear , how to d rive a car,repair a household appl iance , tend agarde n, or a child? Whe re do you go forresults when you 're sick - to a doctor,or church? For pract ical educat ion - toschool and factual texts , or a min ister?For knowledge of the unive rse - to as-tronomers or the B ible? For your per-sonal finances - a rithme tic or a hym-nal? For travel - a map or a praye r?

So-called modern Weste rn religionsare relics left by ances tors trying tomake sense of a world they knew li ttleabout . Maybe in a thousand ye ars sci-

ence will be just another obsolete reli-gion , but for now it 's my best gu ide forliving .

Ame rican Athe ist



Before any attempt be made to account for the origin of the Judeo-Christian scriptures, it must be underscored that it is quite misleading to

speak of the origins of the Bible, and to capitalize 'Bible' as if the term ap-plied to a specific book. There are, after all, many bibles.

produced in Ptolemaic Egypt and con-tains essentially all the material of theHebrew Massoretic bible, but includesabout half a dozen extra books (such as1and 2 Maccabees, Tobit,Judith, Baruch,and Ecclesiasticus) , and some of itsbooks are substantially longer than theirHebrew equivalents. The SeptuagintBook of Daniel, for instance, containsfourteen chapters, as compared to thetwelve of the Hebrew bible. The GreekEsther contains approximately fourchapters more than does the Hebrew -the extra material being distributedthroughout the book . Alas for the so-called Holy Land: inspiration appearsto have been more abundant outside itthan inside it - if one can judge by thesize of the bible brewed in Egypt

As ifall this were not odd enough fora book claimed to be inspired and iner-rant, there is also the problem of orga-nization: not only are the books com-prising the Greek bible distributed in adifferent sequence from that found inthe Hebrew version, material within

individualbooks isoften arranged differ-ently. Someone trying to find the sameitem in the Greek and Hebrew versionsof Jeremiah, for instance, has a realproblem. Apparently, everything inJeremiah is inspired except the wordorder

Finally,there are the Christian bibles,of which two types are still in use today- the Catholic and the Protestant types- although in ancient times there werestillother types, and a few of the surviv-ing Christian bibles, such as those oftheCoptic and Syriac churches, appear tohave continued to evolve right up intomodern times. The Christian bibles con-tain the entire witches' brew - every-thing from the warmed-over fennysnake right up to the tiger's chaudron.

The modern Protestant bibles consistof a so-called Old Testament, a collec-tion of books corresponding to those ofthe Massoretic Hebrew bible, and a so-called New Testament - a collection oftwenty-seven books, consisting ofletters, pseudobiographies, a fanciful

Page 38

history, and an overtly psychotic pieceof literature purporting to explain howthe world willend.

Modern Catholic bibles c ontain es-sentially the same New Testament asthat of the Protestants, but have largerOld Testaments, adopting the moreample stew of the Greek Septuagintrather than the lean cuisine of theHebrew Massoretic bible. Thus, Catho-lic bibles have six more books in themthan do Protestant bibles, and some ofthe books within the Catholic bibles arelonger than their Protestant counter-parts. Ifone were a Catholic apologist,and ifbiblebooks were cards, one mightaccuse the Protestants of not playingwith a fulldeck .

But even Catholics aren't playing witha full deck if one compares their bibleswith the bibles used by ancient Chris-tians. Ancient bibles had such books inthem as The Shepherd of Hermas, TheEpistles of Clement, The Epistle of Bar-nabas, The Book of Enoch, The Gospelof Thomas, The Sibylline Oracles, sev-

eral books of Esdras, etc. Of course, itmust be admitted that many ancientbibles did not contain some ofthe bookstaken for granted in modern bibles.Bibles used by the Syriac church fornearly a thousand years omitted theBook of Revelation, and few Greek bi-bles from ancient times contained thatproduct ofmushroom-intoxicated brains.

The accidents of geography and thepolitical conflicts that resulted in thesedifferent bibles being adopted by differ-ent groups - although fascinating andimportant to study - are largelybeyondthe scope ofthis article, which isintendedto focus more upon the less-than-divineorigins of some of the ingredients thatwent into the brewing of the bibles justmentioned. It is popularly believed bycredulous Jews, Samaritans, and Chris-tians that the various books of theirbibles resulted from divine inspiration .Many people imagine Moses and Mat-thew, or Joshua and John, as havingbeen essentially channelers for Jehovahand Jesus, writing down the words of

Ju ly 1 99 0

the deities as Jesus or Jehovah injectedthem into their brains. .

A study of the scriptures reveals,however, that they are the accumulatedremains of the literatures of many differ-ent peoples and many different cultures.We find the remains of Egyptian hymnsto the solar disk, a sacred drama origi-nallyintended for the worship ofTammuz(or a similar fertility god), and creationmyths and flood myths deriving fromancient Babylon, Sumer, and the Phoe-nician-Canaanite world. We find at leastone book that is a total forgery, writtencenturies after the time its allegedly in-errant author is supposed to have lived .We find that some material - whetherinspired or not - is repeated in individ-ual bibles, often with changes . Onemight argue that changing an inspireddocument would produce an uninspiredone. Of course, one might also arguethat the changes were inspired and theoriginal material was not

As an example of repeated materialsin Judeo-Christian bibles, I might cite

the case of the 31st Psalm, which is ap-proximately the same as the 71st, andthe case of the 60th, which is essentiallythe same as the 108th. There is compel-ling evidence to indicate that the in-spired compiler of the Book of Psalmsas we know it unwittingly combinedwhat were, ineffect, several hymnbooks- never noticing that they both con-tained versions of Amazing Grace and 0 Oem Golden Slippers Not only didour infallible hymn collector - bytradition King David - allow the psalmsto stutter within the confines ofthe Psal-ter; he let at least one psalm slip out andget away altogether. The 18thPsalm canbe found also in the twenty-secondchapter of Second Samuel

I realize that Atheists, ifthey study bi-bles at all,don't usually pay much atten-tion to the psalms. Nevertheless, Iwould point out that a study of thepsalms is sort of like the study of arche-ology:as you dig deeper and deeper intothem, you findthe remains ofearlier andearlier cultures and their cultic liturgies .

A me ric an A th eist



Excerpt from the Gilgamesh Epic, Tablet XI: A Source of Noah's Flood

Actual tablet dates from seventh century B.C .£ . ; thedate of composition is around the beginning of the sec-ond millennium s.c .z .

Utnapishtim said to him, to Gilgamesh: I will reveal to thee, Gilgamesh, a hidden matter, and a

secret of the gods willI tell thee :

Ninigiku-Easaid ... Man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar -Tutu ,Tear down this house, build a shipGive up possessions, seek thou life .Despise property and keep the soul aliveAboard the ship take thou the seed of all livingthings.The ship that thou shalt build, her dimensions shall be to

measure.Equal shall be her width and her length ....

I understood, and I said to Ea, my lord: Behold, my lord, what thou hast thus ordered, I shall be

honored to carry out .

With the first glow of dawn ,The land was gathered about me ....

The little ones carried bitumen,While the grown ones brought all else that was needful .On the fifth day I laid her framework .One whole acre was her floor space,Ten dozen cubits the height of each of her walls,Ten dozen cubits each edge of the square deck .I laid out the shape of her sides and joined her together .I provided her with six decks ,Dividingher thus into seven parts.Her floor plan I d ivided into n ine parts.I hammered water-plugs into her.

I saw to the punting-poles and laid in supplies.Six sar (measures) of bitumen I poured into the furnace,Three sar of asphalt I also poured inside . . ..

On the seventh day the ship was completed .The launching was very difficult,So that they had to shift the floor planks above and below,Until two-thirds of the structure had gone into the water .

Whatever I had I laded upon her....Whatever I had of all the livingbeings I laded upon her.

Allmy family and kin I made go aboard the ship.The beasts of the field, the wild creatures of the field,Allthe craftsmen I made go aboard .

Shamash had set for me a stated time : When he who orders unease at nightWillshower down a rain of blight ,Board thou the ship and batten up the gate

That stated time had arrived ....I watched the appearance of the weather.The weather was awesome to behold.I boarded the ship and battened up the gate ....

With the first glow of dawn,A black cloud rose up from the hor izon.

Austin, Texas

Inside it Adad thunders ....Forth comes Ninurta and causes the d ikes to follow.. ..The wide land was shattered like a potFor one day the south-storm blew,Gathering speed as it blew, submerging the mountains,Overtaking the people like a battle.No one can see his fellow,Nor can the people be recognized from heaven. . . .

Six days and six nightsBlows the flood wind, as the south-storm sweeps the land.When the seventh day arrived,The flood -carrying south-storm sweeps the land.When the seventh day arrived ,The flood -carrying south-storm subsided inthe battle , which

it had fought like an army.The sea grew quiet, the tempest was still, the flood cease d.

I looked at the weather: stillness had set in , and all ofmankind had returned to clay.

The landscape was as level as a flat roof .

I opened a hatch, and light fellupon my face .Bowing low,I sat and wept,Tears running down on my face.I looked about for coast lines in the expanse of the se a:In each of fourteen regionsThere emerged a mountain .

On Mount Nisir the ship came to a halt .Mount Nisir held the ship fast,Allowing no motion .One day, a second day, Mount Nisir held the sh ip fast ,

allowing no motion .A third day, a fourth day , Mount Nisir held the ship fast,

allowing no motion .

A fifth, and a sixth day, Mount N isir held the ship fast ,allowing no motion.

When the seventh day arrived, I sent forth and set free adove .

The dove went forth, but came back;There was no resting-place for it and she turned round.Then I sent forth and set free a swallow .The swallow went forth, but came back;There was no resting-place for it and she turned round.

Then I sent forth and set free a raven .The raven went forth and, seeing that the waters had

diminished,He eats, circles, caws , and turns not round.

Then I let out all to the four windsAnd offered a sacrifice .I poured out a libat ion on the top of the mountain. . ..The gods smelled the savor,The gods smelled the sweet savor,The gods crowded like flies about the sacrificer ....

[Abridged and adapted from Isaac Mendelsohn , ed.,Religions of the Ancient Near East. Sumero-AkkadianReligious Texts and Ugaritic Epics (New York: The LiberalArts Press, 1955).]

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18 And Ishedlestablish my covenan twi,fh,you. And y oushaD come to the ark, you and your .,so,1 l;utdyour w ifeand YO\f.tS9AS' wives with you.19 And of idHhe liv ing, of all flesh, yto the ark t o keep alive w ith you; thefemale ..~~:: .;:::: ..::; ;20 Of the~ .rds accord ing to tbeasts ~cOTdiTt to their k ithi . .W il

· ·2 1· · · ·

Ge

1 And Y asaid to Noah , Co 'hold, to the ark, f or I have s een yo uin this gener ation.2 Of all the dean beasts , take yo ursehis woman ; and of the beasts wh ich aand h is woman . w3 Also of the birds o f the heavens se v~1iIpairs, male andfemale , to keep alive seed on the face .earth.4 For in sev ore days I sha ll rain l}Jorty daysand fort y ni > and I sha ll wipe .'tance thatI have ma deb;pm upon th~ face of

.. .9Utting a; : lmThe trans a ..'profesSor Fr iedman . .

{Priestly tex r(P)ij}.l>qidface, Yahwist tex t (q}in regular..type.) ... . .

'Genes is 6:17 no o '~ And hethe eartH to d

fromund,w~llaie,

To mention just two examples of this, Iwould note first that it has now beenproven practically beyond dispute thatthe 29th Psalm is actually a slightlyreworked Canaanite hymn to Baal, thestorm god. (Canaan was the geographi-cal region roughly correspond ing towhat are now Lebanon and Israel;Phoenicia was the part of Canaan thatnow corresponds to Lebanon .)

My second example is the 104thPsalm. There is very strong evidence toshow that it is ultimately derived fromIkhnaton's Hymn to Aton , the solardisk . There is a close parallelism inimage sequences between the psalmand the Egypt ian hymn. Although it canhardly be doubted that the Hebrewpsalm is derived from the Egyptianrhapsody, it is clear that the psalm wasnot borrowed directly from the Egyptianmodel . The differences are too great .But there is good evidence indicatingthat the Phoenicians, centuries -longtrading partners with the Egyptians,borrowed the hymn first and adapted it

Page 40

to Palest inian - that is to say , Canaanite- practices. The Phoenician versionthen was absorbed by the Hebrewswhen they adapted numerous Phoeni-cian and Ugaritic hymns to their owncultic practices .

The psalms, however , are not theonly examples of biblical borrowingsfrom other earlie r cultu res. I have men -tioned already that the bibl ical floodmyth is related to the older flood mythsof ancient Assyria, Babylonia, and Su -mer. In the sidebar Excerpt from theGilgamesh Epic can be found a some-what abridged version ofthe flood sto ryfrom the Assy ro-Babylonian GilgameshEpic, with its Noah-type hero Utnapish-tim. Its resemblance to the b iblical storyis almost startling - the similar ities ex -tending even to such details as the heroreleasing a dove and a raven after theflood , the dove return ing to the ark, andthe hero making a sacrifice after disem-barking from his ark . Not only do bothflood heroes make a sacrifice, in bothcases we are told that the god or gods

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smelled the odo r of the sacrific e

Not from Moshe' s b rewe ryWhile discussing the flood story in

Genesis (the so-called First B ook ofMoses) , Imight as wel l reveal the sh ock-ing news: Moses d idn't write the FiveBooks of Moses . Apar t from the factthat there is no good evide nce thatMoses was a histo rical personage, thelast chapter of Deute ronomy describesthe death of Moses . It claims tha t t othis day , no one knows h is burial place. While some Holy Rollers claim that thatisproof that Moses was indeed a prophet,it is clear that the autho r of that sen-tence was someone look ing back to thesupposed time of Moses , not Mosesforesee ing his own death.

But the best proof of al l againstMosa ic authorship of the Pentate uch isNum. 12:3 - appa rently del iberatelymistranslated inthe KingJames Version- which tells us that Moses was in facta man ofgreat humility,the most humbleman on ea rth. If Moses had actually

American Atheist



written that, itwould have been likesay-ing, I'm proud of my humility.Although there is not space to go into

the complicated story of how the booksfrom Genesis to Deuteronomy came tohave their present forms, it can at leastbe noted that they are the result ofamal-gamating several independent docu-ments or traditions, followed by exten-sive editing and reworking. One can geta feel for how this type of inspirationoperated by studying the sidebar Teas-ing Apart Two Separate Stories. Thework reproduced there is that of therather freethinking biblical scholarRichard Friedman .

Readers who have ever read the bib-licalflood story at allcarefully must havecome away from the exercise with aheadache, for the story is both repeti-tious and self-contradictory. The time-sequence jerks forward and backward,and one can go absolutely mad trying todetermine how many days the floodlasted. We shall never know whether clean animals embarked by twos or

Austin, Texas

..ters

the earth .18 And the Waters grew strong and mult(earth, and the ark went on the surface 0 · e waters.

19 And the waters grew very very strong on the earth , andthey covered all the high mountains that are under all the

sheavens,20 Fifteen cubits above, the waters grew .stronger, and th~

vered the mQuntains. ... ... tho~

s ; ·a n• s that

m an s ex pi.r ed .•verything that had the breathing spirit oflifein its nost rps,

everything that was on the dry ground, died . ..23 And he wiped out all the substance that was on the faceof the earth, from human to beast, to creeping thing, and tobird of the heavens, and they were wiped out from t he ear th,and only Noah and those who were with him in the ark\A{ereleft.

sevens - or even byfourteens. Scholarlystudies, such as those by Friedman inhis book Who Wrote the Bible? (whichI heartily recommend), clear up theproblem, however.

Concerning the case of the flood sto-ry, the scholarly solution is simple. Twodifferent flood stories - both of themderived from the Gilgamesh Epic and itsNorth-West Semitic equivalents - havebeen combined. They have been put to-gether in much the same manner as onewould meld together two separatedecks of cards. Consequently, the floodstory can be teased out into two separatestrands of narrative, each of which tellsa complete story. Inthe case of the floodstory, one of the narratives is that of awriter known as the Yahwist , or J.

IThe use ofthe letter J derives from Germanscholarly practice . In German , Yahweh, thename given to the deity by this author, isspelled Jahweh. The priestly author gener-ally refers to the deity as Elohim.

July 1990

The other narrative is that of the so-called Priestly writer , or P. Another example ofthe work ofthese

two authors can be found right at thebeginning of Genesis. The first creationmyth, the one where god rests on theseventh day, is the work of P.The sec-ond creation myth, the one beginning inGenesis chapter two, in the middle ofthe fourth verse, is the work of J. Theanthropomorphism ofthe Yahwist's godis evident . Just as in the flood myth J'sgod closes the hatch of the Ark andsmells the sacrifice cooking, in the crea-tion myth his god makes mud-pies andbreathes into them the breath of life . J'sgod does reconstructive surgery withribs, and walks noisily in the Garden ofEden. Not only does he walk; he talks

The conclusion one inevitably drawsafter studying the evolution of the Pen-tateuch is that it resembles the productof the editorial office of a newspaperthat subscribes to several wire services .It bears little resemblance to anythingthat could be passed off as an inspired

Page 41



Turning to biblical wisdom literature - an oxymoron if ever there wasone - one should not be surprised to learn

that such wisdom as there is in the bible is not itself inspired.Only the plagiarism of it was.

product shaped by an omniscient, om-nipotent power.

Skipping along through the Hebrewbible, we come to the sensuous andbeautifully pornographic Song of Solo-mon. Although myoId Lutheran minis-ter used to assure me that this book wasa description of Christ's love for hischurch, scholars have shown that it isreally an adaptation of the liturgy of thecult of Tammuz, the fertility god whowas the lover of Ishtar, the great mother

goddess It would appear that at least apart of the fifth chapter of Isaiah is alsoadapted from the liturgy of the Tammuzcult .

It seems that the inspired authors ofthe books under discussion had seriousproblems in coming up with anythingreally new and had to serve up old winein new wine skins. An awful lot of their inspiration, as we have already seen,consisted simply of reworking previousmaterial . Thus, the story about Moses inthe bulrushes miraculously reproducesthe story of Sargon, king of Sumer andAkkad, who had been born in conceal-ment and set adrift in a basket of bul-rushes on the . waters of the Euphrates.The story of Herod's massacre of theinnocent cohorts of Jesus reproduces- to be sure, in an inspiring manner -Pharaoh's ordered massacre of Moses'cohorts .

Turning to biblicalwisdom literature- an oxymoron if e ver there was one- one should not be surprised to learnthat such wisdom as there is in the bibleis not itselfinspired . Only the plagiarismof it was . The great Egyptologist JamesHenry Breasted, in his book The Dawn

2Itwillrequire an entire article to explain therole of priestly politics in shaping the Penta-teuch and other books of the Old Testa-ment . Ican only note that J , P,and other bib-lical authors were partisans in the strugglebetween the Aaronids and the Mushites,two priestly parties that for centuries foughtfor parasitic privileges and pride of place inthe Jewish kingdoms.

Page 42

o f Conscience, showed beyond disputethat more than a chapter and a half ofthe Book of Proverbs (22:17-23:11) is adirect translation of parts of a thirty-chapter Egyptianbook titled The Wisdomo f Amenemope (Amenemophis). Notonly did the biblical plagiarist lift thirtysayings from the book; he unwittinglyreferred to them as thirty chapters,thus giving further evidence - if suchwere needed - of the source of his inspiration.

Before considering the inspirationof the New Testament, I shall end mycomments on the Old Testament with afew observations on the Book of Daniel .The author of that book supposedlylivedinJerusalem when Nebuchadrezzarcaptured the city and carried him andhisking into captivity in Babylon. Certain proof' of the idea that the author ofDaniel didn 't just warm up a stew cookedup by a predecessor is the fact that hegives the wrong name ofthe kingcarriedinto captivity, the wrong year of thecapture, the wrong name ofthe last kingof Babylon, the wrong name of thatking 's father, and is wrong about thename and nationality of the person whocaptured Babylon and liberated theJews. No one can say that the author ofDaniel copied someone else's work Ifhe didn't get his errors from someoneelse, they must be a sure sign of his own inspiration

Proceeding to the inspired use of left-overs in the origin of the New Testa-ment, it may be noted that there arenumerous books that were included inancient bibles, but are nowadays notconsidered by religious authorities tohave been inspired. Such uninspiredbooks include the Psalms of Solomon,The Fourth Book of Esdras, The BookofEnoch, and the Assumption ofMoses,the Ascension of Isaiah, and The FourthBook of Maccabees . Isn't it curious,then, that among the books warmedover by the inspired authors of the NewTestament (served up without the use ofquotation marks, of course) are parts ofthe Psalms of Solomon, The Fourth

July 1990

Book ofEsdras, The Book ofEnoch, theAssumption of Moses, the Ascension ofIsaiah, and The Fourth Book of Macca-bees?

I end my brief discussion of the NewTestament with a note about the orig inof the Gospels of Matthew and Luke .Ignoring, for lack of space, their borrow-ings of virgin births, Magi, and stars ofBethlehem from the mystery re ligions oftheir day, we note only that these alleg -edly inspired eyewitnesses of Ch rist re-

produce, almost word-for-word, nearly90 percent of the Gospel of Mark . Whysupposed eyewitnesses would need toplagiarize isa puzzle. Why eyewitnesseswould need to be inspired is a greate rpuzzle.

The Second Epistle to Timothy , chap-ter 3, verse 16, says that Allscriptu re isinspired by God and can profitably beused for teaching , for refuting error, fo rguiding people's lives, and teachingthem to be holy. Now that we under-stand just how inspiration works, we seethat high school cafeteria cooks are thepeople who can profit the most from theexample of biblical inspirat ion. Toguide people's lives in the recycling ofpot roasts into meat loaf and beef broth,the biblical example is without equal . Ifwriters plan to let the principle ofbiblicalinspiration guide their lives, however, Isuggest they move to countries that arenot signatory to the international copy-right laws ~

3PS.Sol . 5:9f is reflected in Matt . 6:26, Ps .Sol. 7:9 in Matt . 11:28; 4 Esd . 8:3,41 isreflected in Matt . 22:14;Enoch 1 :9 is quotedin Jude 1:14; Ass. Mos. 7:1-10 underliesMatt . 23:25f; Asc. Isaiah 5:11-14 is reflectedin Heb. 11:37; and 4 Macc . 7:19/16:25 liesbehind Matt. 22:32 . For more details onthese and other borrowings, see pages 54-55 of Albert C. Sundberg, Jr ., HarvardTheological Studies Xx. The Old Testamentof the Early Church (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1964).

American Atheist



American Atheist Radio Series

An interview of theauthor of Wh .at GodHas Revealed to Manfinds him as delightfulas his essay.

When the first installment of aregularly scheduled, fifteen-minute,weekly American Atheist radio serieson KLBJ radio (a station in Austin,Texas, owned by then-President

Lyndon Baines Johnson) hit theairwaves on 3 June 1968, the nationwas shocked. The programs had to besubmitted weeks in advance and wereheavily censored. The regular produc-tion of the series ended in September1977, when no further funding wasavailable.The following is the text of AmericanAtheist Radio Series program No. 374,first broadcast on 3 January 1976.

Madalyn O Hair

Austin , Texas

Karl Pauli, part 1

[ Jn this particular occasion I amhappy to tell you that we have inthe studio, Karl Pauli . Earlier in

1976, he won the award as an AtheistPioneer of the American Atheist move-ment . Good afternoon, Karl . How areyou today?

Pauli: I am very well today and it is abeautiful day.

O'Hair: Well, that is rather unusual,because how old are you, Karl?

Pauli: I am fifty -sixyears old .O'Hair: Oh, come on .

Pauli: I am eighty-five years old .

O'Hair: You know, one of the thingsthat surprises my husband is that per -sons your age are Atheists. He keepssaying, Well, these people should beready to die, and here they are defyinggod. How do you feel about that?

Pauli: Well, would say that my doubtswere early in my childhood and from

then on

ad no fears of any gods or anysuperstitious forces interfering with mylife.

O'Hair: Well, that is wonderful . Whatkind of a childhood could you possiblyhave had? Can you tell us just a little bitabout your background, Karl?

Pauli: Well, presume ancestry hassomething to do with that . My ancestorswere presumably a majority of German.My mother's name was Katherin orKatrina Younggrose, born on the FourthofJuly in 1863on Henry Street inCleve-land , Ohio. Her parents came from Ger-many, but she claimed to have a Scotgrandfather. Her father was definitelyGerman of Saxon origin, but both par -ents belonged to the German Evangel-ical church, which is a Calvinist or hu-manist organization . My father wasborn inWest Prussia inGermany, abouttwo years previous to my mother. Hisfather was an army carrier-man appar-ently belonging to the Roman Catholicchurch, and he insisted that his boy was

Ju ly 1 99 0

to be made a priest because he wo uldnot have to work fo r a living,with p lentyof wine and many women.

O'Hair : You really think that is theopinion that people had at that t ime forthe clerical life?

Pauli : Especially the army me n, and

meet many of them with the sam e view-point today . My father's mothe r was aFrench girlwhose parents were killed ina Roman Ca tholic massacre of the Cal-vinists and the human ists yea rs ago, andshe was carried to German y as a childand given to a silk-worker to raise.

O'Hair: Do you know if tha t was thecustom? Did they take the c hildren ofthose massacred people ? Do you knowanymore about this? Did she say an y-thing to you?

Pau li: Well , she told me stories of thecamps she was at as a l ittle girl. She had

Karl Pauli .receives an award from theSociety of Separationists, in appreciationof his long and arduous work and hisdedicated perseverence on behalf ofAmerican Atheism (January 7 , 1976) .

Page 43



Below: Karl Pauli on a visit to the Amer-ican Atheist Museum in Petersburg,Indiana in 1976.From left to right: LloydThoren; Pam Thoren, director of theMuseum; Karl Pauli; and Henry Schmuckof the Detroit Chapter of AmericanAtheists.Right: Karl Pauli, at his home, explainsthe long and the short of it (December

1976).the run of the camps when they werenot fighting and she would ride on thesoldiers ' shoulders, and they carried herright along and took her back to Ger-many. These were German soldiers .

O'Hair: Go ahead.

Pauli: She and my grandfather had adaughter and my father. They partedand my father was raised ina monasterywith monks , from six years of age, fromwhich his mother stole him at the age offifteen and went to Holland, from whichhe came to America to study at AmherstCollege near Chicago.

O'Hair: Could you tell me just a littlebit about that? Why would your motherhave to steal her son out of the monas-tery?

Pauli: In Germany the man owned thechildren and perhaps that same thing istoday. I do not know. But in the owningof them, he came back and he was nota bad sort of a fellow . He said, Well , Iwillleave the girl to you, but I want that

boy to be a priest so he won't have to gothrough the monkey shine. So myfather was trained as an ordained pastorin a church in Ohio, which he was theretwo years. He gave sermons in bothGerman and English because the youn-ger folks knew the English sermons andthat was a German settlement . Vermil-ion, Ohio, was somewhat of a summerresort, and my mother would go there insummer for several weeks with othergirls from Cleveland. They attended thechurch where my father preached, ofthe same creed . They got acquainted

and a year later they weremarried , and he came toCleveland and gave uppreaching and became ateacher of languages atthe Calvin College, whichwas a theological organi-zation . In summer ourfront porch was a forumofyoung doctors, preach-ers, and priests; and oneGerman-speaking rabbiwould show his speaking power onSunday afternoons, where men - nowomen - held their forum. It was veryinteresting to me, but my father insistedthat I should be seen, not heard. Heeven made a stool for me to sit on. Theywould be served some refreshments,often really needed because their talkwas not bitter, but very hot sometimes- and an apparent rule . Yet I later ana-lyzed what I later remembered. Somebigotry came out, but in the main thesestudents and teachers conducted them-selves quite decently. Even after many

years later , they would visit each other.At the age of seventeen, I and my fatherseparated.

O'Hair: Did you have a fallingout withhim at the point?

Pauli: Yes. I left and hoboed with theIWW*

O'Hair: Well, what is the IWW? Youhave to tellour listeners a littlebit aboutthis, because some ofthis is ancient his-tory, Karl .

Pauli: My father gave up all that workand went to work on afarm. He traded his houseand that way he got out,but he knew nothing aboutfarming . He had sent meto farms to get away fromthe city so I would not becrawling the streets withthe boys, and he says thatevery summer I learnedmore about farming. So

I when I got out I was the

Page 44 July 1990

oldest boy ; the other boys wen t toschool and I had to stay there . We hadseven horses. I went out and work edtwo days' work one day , and probablypart of the next as hard wo rked nightswith the horses . But anyway , I was hun-gry and I came in and ate without say -ing my prayers . I had gone through th isprocess of saying prayers , but thoughtnothing of it . It was just a formali ty. Butthat night when my father asked whethe ror not I had prayed, I blew up . It was alate spring and oats in those days werelike gasoline is today . We had to get theoats in and so that was allitwas . I turnedon him and I said I am sick and tired ofworking hard and then thanking someghost to have put the food on ou r table .My father had a good German reaction.He said that no boy of his w ith that att i-tude could put his feet under his table,and I jumped up , packed my su itcase,and I left.

O'Hair: And then you went with theIWW What is the IWW?

Pauli: Iknew nothing of the IWW when

I went, but I found out very quickly, be-cause the IWW was the Industr ial Work-ers of the World. They definitely statedthat the world would never get out of its

*Industrial Workers ofthe World was a rev-olutionary labor organization formed in 1904to abolish the wage system and cap italismby force . Its antiwar call for a general strikein 1917brought United States governmentsuppression, though the IWW claimed30,000 members as late as 1926 .

American Atheist



Letters to the Editor

~ : n ~~~n: : b lenn o n. t r s ~

Letters to the Editor should be ei-ther questions or comments of generalconcern to Atheists or to the Atheistcommunity. Submissions should bebrief and to the point. Spacelimitations allow that each lettershould be three hundred words or,preferably, less. Please confine yourletters to a single issue only. Mail themto: American Atheist P. O. Box140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195.

Page 46

Of men and fetusesI suppose he meant well, but the Me

Too article by Jo e Bauer in the Aprilissue wasn't much b etter than the oneby anti-choice Jack Wil son, to which hewas responding.

Although Bauer comes down on thepro-choice side, it's for allthe wrong rea-sons. Frankly, as a woman, I wouldn'tgivea damn ifthe fertilized egg, from themoment of conception, could recitenursery rhymes and tap dance. Ifit's mybody that's being used for this process,I'll decide what to do about it,and when.

I am fed up with allthis agonizing overwhen life, or personhood, or whatever,begins. It simply doesn't matter. Womenknow all about fetal development . Theyknow that early abortion is better thanlate abortion, for many practical rea-sons. They know enough not to havelate abortions except in extreme cir-cumstances. They can handle theirpregnancies quite well without legisla-tion, thank you.

This constant effort by men (even

Atheist men ) to establish the groundrules for women's reproductive activi-ties just reinforces my opinion that reli-gions were developed primarily to con-trol women. Some men may cut religionout of their lives, but its roots remain.

We don't need handwringing lawsthat fine-tune the moment of fetal viabil-ity and set up all sorts of regulations forwomen who want an abortion. Women'sbodies are not a public utility,and we willnot hold still for being regulated.

So, to all you men out there, forwhom civilizationhas not yet caught up,read our lips : Abortion is none of yourdamn business

Maria Alena Castle, Political LiaisonTwin Cities Chapter

American Atheists

Nuns on the doleOn page 11of the April 1990issue of

American Atheist at the right-handbottom of the page, you make a state-ment : You pay a high Social Security

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tax because retired nuns and priestsreceive Social Security although the yhave never paid into Social Securi tyfunds. Now I don't doubt your state -ment, but in talking to a Roman Catho -licfriend of mine, who isa dentist, I me n-tioned that nuns and priests did not payinto Social Security although they re-ceive it .

He said that wasn't so, that they didpay into it . Isthere anything in pr int thatI can show him?

If you can find time, I would like toknow.

Roger S . WilsonOhio

Thank you for your inqui ry. Manyother readers expressed such shoc keddisbelief that there could be such anunfair government policy .

Public Law 92-603passed by the 92ndCongress, on October 30 , 1972, an Act(86 Stat . 1329) titled Social Se curityAmendments of 1972, provided in Sec.

123 for Coverage of vow-of-povertymembers of religious orders. The fairmarket value of any board, lodg ing,clothing , and perquisites furnished toany member upon which Social Secu -rity would be calculated was set at theminimum of $100 .00 a month. Themembers of such orders pay nothinginto Social Security. The religious or-ganization pays taxes (an equivalentpercentage to what you r employer payson your wages) on that supposed $100.00a month. When the members of theorder hit age sixty-two or age si xty-jiveand receive their free Soc ial Security ,they are expected to turn their checksover to the religiousorder .

It is a clear-cut government giveawayto, primarily, the Roman Cathol icchurch .

New words for old, old problemsI think D . E. Knight of Virginia has it

right with his definition of Atheophobia( Letters to the Editor, April 1990).Here are a few more: Paratheophobia

American Atheist



is fear of being beside a religious nut-case (otherwise known as revulsi on ),and anti theophobia is fear .of beingagainst religion, or closet Atheism. Addto this anatheophobia as fear of beingsuperior to th eism and you've just aboutcovered the pantheon (pan-atheon?) ofdescriptions of U.S. Atheists today. Per-haps Mr.Zindler can shed some lightonthe use ofGreek prefixes; I always enjoyhis articles

Inresponse to the April 1990 TalkingBack question What isthe purpose ofour existence, if there is no god? Thequestion fights itself. A precondition isgiven that no god exis ts, then is imme -diately countered with the claim thateven without a god, purpose wouldexist . To imply a goal implies a begin-ning. Machines have a purpose, it istrue, because they are created with the.end result in mind, but this doesn't holdtrue for biological processes that areconstantly mutating, evolving, and sub-ject to entropy -- all of which are sub-ject to laws verifiable by observation.

No one observing a machine rustcould claim that this is evidence of theexistence of man.

Ryan G. PlutWashington

Pick a god, any godIn Jon Murray's Marketing Atheism

(April 1990) was mentioned again thesimplistic Christian view that an Atheistisjust a god denier. Actually everyoneis,and let them try the impossible: prove

A m e r ic a n A th e is t

words, Christians. Invoking their wrathupon oneself isnot of consequence. Butfor all the Christians' touting of highmoral standards, they would delight inharassing one's wifeor children, or evencausing them physical harm.

I would like to make a suggestion. In-stead ofpressing our fellowsto announcetheir Atheism for all to hear, we shouldinstead ask them to do what they can forthe cause of rationalism. Wheneverthere is an opportunity to leave a pam-phlet, to order a gift subscription ofAmerican Atheist for the local library ,they should do whatever they can tobring Atheism to light, without endan -gering themselves or their families. Andone day I'm sure that they willproclaimthat they are Atheists.

the other gods don't exist .One reply to Why don't you believe

ingod? is Which one? There are manyothers that you don't believe in. Anyway,your first commandment says to nothave any strange gods and yours fits thedescription. It is as strange as theycome .

Andrew Ralph Cosetta, Jr.California

Work for closet Atheists

In the April 1990 issue of AmericanAtheist, there isan article by Mr. Murrayon censorship by librarians. Unfortu-nately, Mr. Murray's observations are alltoo correct. I am a librarian on a unit inwhich I'm housed here at a state prison.And although I do not hide the fact thatI'm an Atheist, I can understand a per-son with a family wishing to stay in thecloset . Holding a job in the public eyebrings with it the censure of those indi-viduals in society who proclaim them-selves watchdogs -- or, in other

David LyonsIndiana

Gov. Olson and his fansI want to tell you how proud I was of

the April issue of the magazine. The

cover story ( The Hon. Atheist Gover-nor: Culbert Olson ) was wonderful .Thanks so much for your fine work .

Robert FireovidMassachusetts

The Courage of His Convictionsand the Marketing Atheism were ex-cellent articles in the April 1990issue.

Celia GlantzFlorida

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July 1990 American Atheist



suggested

American Atheist

introductory reading listIII

Literature on Atheism is very hard to find in most publ icand un iversi ty libraries in the United States - and m ost ofthe time when yo u do find a book catalogued under th eword A th eism it is a work a g ainst the Atheist position.Therefore we suggest t he following publications which areavailable fro m Amer ican Atheist Press as an introductioninto the multiface ted areas of A theism and state/ church sep-

aration. , To ac hieve t he best understa nding of thoug ht inthese areas the featured publications should be read in theorder listed . These by no mea ns represent our entire co llec-tion of Atheist and separa tionist mat erials.

1. All the Questions You Ever Wa nted to Ask AmericanAtheists with All of the Answers by Jon Murray andMadalyn O'Hair. Paperback. 248 pp. #5356 $9.00

2. The Case Aga inst Religion: A Psychotherap ist s Viewby Dr. Albert E llis. Stapled. 57 pp. #5096 $4.00

3. What on Ea rth Is an Atheist by Madalyn O'Hair.Paperback. 288 pp. #5412 $8.00

4. An Atheist Speaks by Madalyn O'Hair. Paperback. 321pp. #5098 $8.00

5. All about Atheists by Madalyn O'Ha ir. Paperback. 407pp. #5097 $8.00

6. Ingersoll the Magnificent by Joseph Lewis. Paperback.342 pp. #5216 $10.00

7. Essays on American Atheism, vol. I by Jon G. Murray.Paperback. 349 pp. #5349 $10.00

8. Essa ys on American Atheism, vol. II by Jon G. Mur-ray. Pa perback. 284 pp. #5350 $10.00

9. Essays in F reethinking, vol. I by Chapman Cohen .Paperback. 229 pp. #5052 $9.00

10. Essa ys in Freethinking, vol. II by Chapman Cohen .Paperback. 240 pp . #5056 $9.00II. Life Story of Auguste Comte by F. J. Gould. Paper-

back. 179 pp. #51 32 $6.50

12. History's Greatest Liar s by Jose ph McCa be. Paper-back . 176pp. #55 24 $6.50

13. Atheist Tru th vs. Religions Ghosts by Col. Robert G.Ingersoll. Stapled. 57 pp . #5156 $4.00

14. Some Reasons I Am a Freet hinker by Robert G. Inger-soll. Stapled . 37 pp. #5184 $4.00

15. O ur Constitution - The Way It Was by MadalynO'Hair. Stapled . 70 pp . #5400 $4.00

16. Religion and Mar x by Rick B. A. Wi se. Paperback. 267pp. #5521 $12.00

17. Fou rteen Leading Cases o n Educat ion, Religion, andFin ancing Schools. Pape rback. 273 pp. #5500 ....__. $5.00

18. Sex Mythology by Sha Rocco . Stapled. 55 pp .#5440 $4.00

19. Women and Atheism, The Ultimate Libera tion byMadalyn O'Hair. Stapled. 21 pp . #5420 $3.50

20. Chr istianit y Before Chri st by John G. Jackso n. Paper-back . 238 pp. #5200 $9.00

21. The Bible Handbook (All the contradictions, absurdi-ties, and atrocities from the Bible) by G.W . Foote , W.P.Ball , John B owden, and Rich ard M. S mith. Paperback.372 pp. #5008 $9.00

22. The X-Rated Bible by Ben Edward Akerley. Paper-back . 428 pp. #5000 $10.00

All of the above publ ications are avai lable at a special setprice of $130.00 - a savings of $32.50 off th e listed price.

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A m e n d m e n t ICongress shall make no lawrespecting an estab lishment of reli-

gion, or prohibiting the free exercisethereof; or abridging the freedom ofspeech, or of the press; or the rightof the people peaceably to assem-ble, and to petition the governmentfor a redress of grievances.

When man comes to the realization that he isnot the 'favorite' of God; that he was not speciallycreated, that the universe was not made for hisbenefit, and that he is subject to the same laws ofnature as all other forms of life, then, and not untilthen, will he understand that he must rely uponhimself, and himself alone, for whatever benefitshe is to enjoy; and devote his time and energiesto helping himself and his fellow men to meet theexigencies of life and to set about to solve thedifficult and intricate problems of living.

- Joseph LewisAn Atheist Manifesto

american atheist magazine july 1990

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