ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996 TAG: 9604190061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
As a child, William J. Murray was a plaintiff in the lawsuit his atheist activist mother, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, filed 36 years ago to banish organized prayer from public schools.
As a self-professed born-again Christian, Murray is trying to establish a Christian Coalition chapter in Stafford County.
Murray's mother sued in the name of her son in federal court in Baltimore in 1960 to end organized prayer in public school classrooms. The Supreme Court heard arguments in their case in 1963 and later ordered an end to school prayer on grounds that it amounted to government establishment of religion.
In 1980, Murray became a Christian and began working for conservative political change. He heads a political action committee, God is Not Government, that is pushing a constitutional amendment to lift government restrictions on religious expression in public schools. It is also working for candidates in U.S. Senate races in Delaware and Louisiana.
O'Hair disappeared from her home in Austin, Texas, in August.
Murray scheduled a meeting for Thursday night at a Fredericksburg theater to organize a chapter of the conservative grass-roots organization founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. The Christian Coalition, based in Chesapeake, supports conservative issues and rates elected officials and office seekers according to its agenda.
``I'm working to give it a rebirth, really,'' he said of the coalition chapter in the Fredericksburg area. ``I would like to see it more as a permanent presence than just kind of spooling up during an election cycle and then vanishing for two years.''
Murray described his mother's economic theories as Marxist and scorns her her denial of God. But for all his criticism of her, he invokes her renown in promoting his business. On his newsletters and fliers, Murray identifies himself as ``the Christian son of America's self-proclaimed `most-hated woman'''
LENGTH: Short : 45 linesby CNB