Has the dead hand of a notorious atheist succeeded in getting the federal government to ban the word “God” from America’s airways, thus forcing CBS to cancel Touched by an Angel? In a word, no.
This hoax has been circulating since 1975, and shows no signs of going away, despite the fact that its primary antagonist, atheist Madeline Murry O’Hare, is dead. It was circulated for years in print form before making the jump to e-mail. More recent versions make reference to Murry O’Hare’s disappearance and the subsequent discovery of her body, but they’re just as bogus as the original.
Here’s the e-mail:
Date Captured: 12/4/02
THOUGH SHE’S DEAD AND HAS JUST BEEN LOCATED, AFTER 5 YEARS, THIS WOMAN CONTINUES TO HAUNT US FROM HER SHALLOW GRAVE. CBS will be forced to discontinue “Touched by an Angel” for using the word God in every program.
Madeline Murray O’Hare, an atheist, successfully managed to eliminate the use of Bible reading from public schools a few years ago. Now her organization has been granted a Federal Hearing on the same subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, DC. Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the gospel our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of America. They got 287,000 signatures to back their stand!
If this attempt is successful, all Sunday worship services being broadcast on the radio or by television will be stopped. This group is also campaigning to remove all Christmas programs and Christmas carols from public schools!! You as a Christian can help! We are praying for at least 1 million signatures. This would defeat their effort and show that there are many Christians alive, well and concerned about our country.
As Christians, we must unite on this. Please don’t take this lightly. We ignored this woman once and lost prayer in our schools and in offices across the nation. Please stand up for your religious freedom and let your voice be heard. Together we can make a difference in our country while creating an opportunity for the lost to know the Lord.
Please press “forward” and forward this to everyone on your list. Now, please sign your name at the bottom you can only add your name after you have pressed the “Forward.” Don’t delete anything, just go to the next number and type your name. Please do not sign jointly, such as Mr. & Mrs.
Each person should sign his/her own name. Please e-mail this to everyone you know, and help us defeat this organization and keep the right of our freedom of religion. When the list reaches 1000, please e-mail back to Lisa Norman (email address deleted).
Date Captured: 1/12/02
Subject: MADELINE MURRAY O’HARE – GOING A LITTLE TOO FARKEEPING THE WORD “GOD”—————
It’s not the T.V. show we are protecting, but the right to have it there. CBS will be forced to discontinue “Touched by an Angel” for using the word God in every program.
Madeline Murray O’Hare, an atheist, successfully managed to eliminate the use of Bible reading from public schools a few years ago. Now her organization has been granted a Federal Hearing on the same subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, DC. Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of America.
They got 287,000 signatures to back their stand! If this attempt is successful, all Sunday worship services being broadcast on the radio or by television will be stopped. This group is campaigning to remove all Christmas programs and Christmas carols from public schools!!
You as a Christian can help! We are praying for at least 1 million signatures. This would defeat their effort and show that there are many Christians alive, well and concerned about our country. as Christians, PLEASE don’t take this lightly. We ignored this lady once and lost prayer in our schools and in offices across the nation. Please stand up for your religious freedom and let your voice be heard. Together we can make a difference in our country while creating an opportunity for the lost to know the Lord.
***Please press “forward” and only delete out what is not needed, and forward this to everyone on your list.
***Now, please sign your name at the bottom (you can only add your name after you have pressed the “Forward” or copied it to a new page.)
***Don’t delete anything, just go to the next number and type your name.
***Please do not sign jointly, such as Mr. & Mrs. Each person should sign his/her own name.
***Please e-mail this to everyone you know, and help us defeat this organization and keep the right to our freedom of religion.
When you get to 1000, please e mail back to Lisa Norman (email address deleted)
So what’s the deal? Madeline Murray O’Hare was a real person, and really did work to get public prayer banned from public schools in the 1960s. She later went missing along with her children and a small fortune from her organization, American Atheists. In 2000, she was found — or rather, her body was found — when her murderer confessed and led police to her body and that of her children.
(for more on that, check out this Snopes.com debunking.
Regardless of her personal history, she never had anything to do with the alleged drive to remove religious broadcasting from America’s airwaves. Because that drive never existed.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, the source of this hoax dates back to 1974, when two men petitioned it to prevent religious organizations from operating educational broadcast stations. It wasn’t trying to prevent relgious broadcasting, just religious organizations from running public “educational” stations while broadcasting a religious message.
In December 1974, Jeremy D. Lansman and Lorenzo W. Milam filed a petition (RM-2493) asking the FCC to inquire into the operating practices of stations licensed to religious organizations, and not to grant any new licenses for new noncommercial educational broadcast stations until the inquiry had been completed. The FCC denied this petition on August 1, 1975. Ms. O’Hair was not a sponsor of this petition.
Now while I personally take issue with the FCC’s track record on free speech issues, the commission does state on its web site that there is no federal law that gives the FCC the authority to prohibit radio and television stations from broadcasting religious programs.” So even if they wanted to, they couldn’t.
Further, Touched by an Angel isn’t being canceled. And they’ve even got a message board up on their site dedicated soley to debunking this hoax.
There are plenty of sites on the net that debunk this hoax. Here are a few of the best:
- fcc.gov: Religous Broadcast Rumor Denied: The FCC’s debunking of the hoax.
- fcc.gov: Ruling on Petition RM-2493: The FCC’s official ruling on the petition.
- Snopes.com: Petition to Ban Religious Broadcasting : An excellent overview of the hoax and the people involved.
- Touched.com: Hoax Debunking: The official Web site’s message board for debunkig the hoax.