Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided 8–1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp, on behalf of his son Ellery Schempp, and declared that school-sponsored Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public schools in the United States was unconstitutional.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for atheists, agnostics, and nontheists. Formed in 1976, FFRF promotes the separation of church and state, and challenges the legitimacy of many federal and state programs that are faith-based. It supports groups such as nonreligious students and clergy who want to leave their faith.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair was an American activist and Holocaust denier supporting atheism and separation of church and state. In 1963, she founded American Atheists and served as its president until 1986, after which her son Jon Garth Murray succeeded her. She created the first issues of American Atheist Magazine and identified as a "militant feminist".
Goparaju Ramachandra Rao, popularly known as Gora, was an Indian social reformer, atheist activist and a participant in the Indian independence movement. He authored many books on atheism and proposed atheism as self-confidence. He propagated positive atheism by his articles, speeches, books and his social work. He is the founder of Atheist Centre along with his wife Saraswathi Gora and a few volunteers. Social reformer G. Lavanam, politician Chennupati Vidya, and physician G. Samaram are his children.
Ellen Johnson is an American activist for the civil rights of atheists and for the separation of church and state in the United States. She served as the president of the organization American Atheists from 1995 to 2008.
Joseph Lewis was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. During the mid-twentieth century, he was one of America's most conspicuous public atheists, the other being Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Born in Montgomery, Alabama to a Jewish family, he was forced by poverty to leave school at the age of nine to find employment. He read avidly, becoming self-educated. Lewis developed his ideas from reading, among others, Robert G. Ingersoll, whose published works made him aware of Thomas Paine. He was first impressed by atheism after having read a large volume of lectures of Ingersoll devoted to his idol Paine, which was brought to their house by his older brother. He later credited Paine's The Age of Reason with helping him abandon theism.
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States has been criticized on several grounds. Its use in government funded schools has been the most controversial, as critics contend that a government-sanctioned endorsement of religion violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Arguments against the pledge include that the pledge itself is incompatible with democracy and freedom, that it is a form of nationalistic indoctrination, that pledges of allegiance are features of current and former totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany, and that the pledge was written to sell flags.
William J. Murray III is an American author, Baptist minister, and social conservative lobbyist. Murray serves as the chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C. that lobbies Congress on issues related to aiding Christians in Islamic and Communist countries.
Charles E. Stevens American Atheist Library and Archives (CESAALA) is a collection of over 40,000 volumes of books, documents, and various other research tools located in Cranford, New Jersey, United States. It was founded by the American Atheists and currently records oral histories of various intellectuals and lecturers. The library also contains "historical pamphlets, leather-bound volumes, early free-thought publications, and other separationist arcana." The library is valued at between $1 million and $3 million and is one of American Atheists' most valuable assets. The American Atheist Press is a division of the Charles E. Stevens American Atheist Library.
Charles Lee Smith was an American atheist and white supremacist author and activist widely known for being the last successful conviction for blasphemy in the United States.
Jon Garth Murray served as president of American Atheists, a non-governmental organization that lobbied on the separation of church and state. He was the second son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, an activist who founded American Atheists in 1963 and served as its first president. He was the half-brother of William J. Murray.
American Atheist: A Journal of Atheist News and Thought, commonly known as American Atheist Magazine, is a quarterly magazine currently edited by Alyssa Fuller and Tom Van Denburgh and published by American Atheists. American Atheist is available in print with an annual membership in American Atheists and in PDF form on Scribd.com.
Cameron Village is a neighborhood in the North District of Baltimore, located between the neighborhoods of Mid-Govans and Woodbourne Heights. Vaguely bell-shaped, its boundaries are marked by Bradhurst Road and E. Belvedere Avenue (north), Woodbourne Avenue (south), Lothian Road (west) and Northwood Drive (east).
James Hervey Johnson was an American atheist freethinker, writer and editor of The Truth Seeker, formerly run by Charles Lee Smith.
Ronald A. Lindsay was president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry and of its affiliates, the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He held this position June 2008 – 2016.
School prayer in the United States if organized by the school is largely banned from public elementary, middle and high schools by a series of Supreme Court decisions since 1962. Students may pray privately, and join religious clubs in after-school hours. Public schools are those operated by government agencies, such as local school districts. They are banned from conducting religious observances such as prayer. Private and parochial schools are not covered by these rulings, nor are colleges and universities. Elementary and secondary schools are covered because students are required to attend, and are considered more at risk from official pressure than are older students and adults. The Constitutional basis for this prohibition is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which requires that:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...
The secular movement refers to a social and political trend in the United States, beginning in the early years of the 20th century, with the founding of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in 1925 and the American Humanist Association in 1941, in which atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, freethinkers, and other nonreligious and nontheistic Americans have grown in both numbers and visibility. There has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated, from under 10 percent in the 1990s to 20 percent in 2013. The trend is especially pronounced among young people, with about one in three Americans younger than 30 identifying as religiously unaffiliated, a figure that has nearly tripled since the 1990s.
The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism was an atheistic and antireligious organization established in 1925. It was founded by Charles Lee Smith, and the organization's "only creedal requirement was a formal profession of atheism".
Atheists of Florida is a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization. Their main goal is to advocate about separation of church and state.
The Most Hated Woman in America is a 2017 American biographical drama film directed by Tommy O'Haver and written by O'Haver and Irene Turner. It stars Melissa Leo as Madalyn Murray O'Hair.
