ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
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, the son is trying to establish a Christian Coalition chapter in Stafford County. He and his wife moved to Virginia from Dallas in December.
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, last August.
Murray has scheduled a meeting tonight 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 stands on 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 denial of God.
He said he has not seen his mother in years and is not sure why she disappeared along with his daughter and his brother.
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