- Following message extracted from AAOS @ 1:374/14 - By Christopher Baker on Sat Feb 04 19

--- Following message extracted from AAOS @ 1:374/14 ---
    By Christopher Baker on Sat Feb 04 19:15:03 1995

From: Robin Murray-o'hair
To: All
Date: 04 Feb 95  16:40:22
Subj: RELIGIOUS BROADCASTING PETITION
		    
		    AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.

	   Position Statement on FCC Petition Hoax


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	      Federal Communications Commission
		      Petition #RM2493

At no time, during the past sixteen years has Madalyn Murray
O'Hair, American Atheist, been involved in or associated with the
famous Petition #RM2493 to the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC).

Madalyn O'Hair has been one of the primary champions of Freedom
of Speech, Freedom of the Press, and Freedom of Conscience in the
United States for -- at least -- the last fifty years.

However, the Judeo-Christian community in order to slander,
malign, and defame this woman because of her advocacy of Atheism
has spread the false and malicious rumor that Madalyn Murray
O'Hair has a petition before the Federal Communications
Commission to eliminate all religious broadcasting from the
airways.

The truth is that Jeremy D. Lansman and Lorenzo W. Milan, on
December 1, 1974 filed a petition for "rule making" with the FCC
since, in their struggle to obtain airtime for minority groups,
they had discovered that "religious, Christian, and sectarian
schools, colleges, and institutes" were rapidly swallowing up
"the reserved educational FM and TV channels" so that, often, one
religious institution would own and control several radio and
television stations in a given area. The two young men asked the
FCC to regulate this religious entry into the communications
market so that minority groups would have a chance to obtain
access.

The petition was received by the FCC on December 6, 1974. The
petition was rejected by the FCC on August 2, 1975.

Meanwhile, the National Religious Broadcasters and the Oklahoma
Christian Crusade began a rumor that Madalyn O'Hair had filed the
petition with the FCC and that it had contained 27,000
signatures. THIS WAS A BALD FACED LIE. So active was the National
Religious Broadcasters organization in spreading this rumor that
the FCC had received 750,000 letters protesting the activities of
Madalyn O'Hair by the summer of 1975. When the FCC rejected the
Lansman-Milan petition it noted that the Madalyn O'Hair rumor was
founded (1) "on a mistaken view" that Mrs. O'Hair was involved
and (2) that the Lansman-Milan petition "proposed to ban all
religious broadcasting." Neither of these were correct.

Next the National Association of Evangelicals got into the act as
did the Roman Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting. Counter
"petitions" against Madalyn Murray O'Hair's non-existent RM-2493
began to arrive at the FCC. By March 1976, there were 3,000,000
of them. United States Senators, members of the U.S. House of
Representatives, congresspersons in state legislatures, and
governors, were receiving a flood of letters. Senator Walter F.
Mondale was receiving 7,000 letters a week. By the end of July in
1976 there were almost 4,000,000 letters in the hands of the FCC
alone.

Lansman-Milan were enraged. Under a Freedom of Information
request they were able to look at the letters and found that they
were all worded the same. The Lutheran Church of America proudly
proclaimed it, alone, would get one million letters to the FCC.
The Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Churches of Christ, the
Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), the Daughters of the American
Revolution (DAR), and the Rev. Carl McIntire swore they would
"stop Madalyn Murray O'Hair" and pledged millions of petitions
against her. By February 1977, the FCC had 7,000,000 letters. The
rumor was, by then, enlarged. Mrs. O'Hair was after children's
show on television; she had gained a hearing before the FCC for
her petition; she had managed to get a bill introduced into
Congress to ban religious broadcasting.

In April 1977, the Senate in the Illinois Congress passed a
resolution condemning Madalyn O'Hair. The Mormon Church picked up
the rumor and went with it. Just the cost of individual stamps to
put on all of these letters had by then passed the $1,650,000
mark. By 1979 the FCC had received 9,000,000 letters and they
were coming in then at the rate of 8,000 a day. This does NOT
include telephone calls, nor letters and petitions to
legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government above
indicated. The Federation of Women's Clubs then joined the letter
writing. By September 1979 the FCC letters were up to 60,000 a
day. But then, of course, the Boy Scouts had joined in the game.
By January 1980, the FCC reported that 12,000,000 letters had
been received. It was forced to go to the U.S. Congress to ask
for a special appropriate of $250,000 to try to put the word out
that the story of Madalyn O'Hair and RM-2493 was simply a rumor
without substance. The FCC sent out 100,000 letters to leading
proponents of the letter-writing campaign and to 30,000 religious
leaders asking all of them to spread the word that the petition
was an unfounded rumor.

In January 1982 on a visit to Washington, D.C., Jon Murray, the
C.E.O. of American Atheists, stopped at the FCC to find that
eight persons had been put on the staff just to answer the
telephone for the RM 2493 queries and another five persons were
added to do nothing but open the mail so that the RM 2493
petitions and letters regarding Madalyn O'Hair could be separated
out from ordinary FCC business mail. A minimum of 100 telephone
calls a day were being channeled into the FCC Consumer's
Assistance Office; letters were coming in at the rate of 100,000
a day and 13,000,000 letters had been counted. About then, the
FCC simply gave up and only estimated the number of letters by
the pound.

In the next eight years, the letters were to be doubled, and
before the end of 1989, the estimated count of letters by the FCC
was up to 25,000,000. Another wave of this nonsense seized the
nation in 1990 as the rumor swept from state to state. Factories
carried information concerned with Madalyn Murray O'Hair's RM
2493 petition on bulletin boards in work places; churches
featured the announcements; the information was passed out in
religious and in public schools; clubs and fraternal
organizations distributed handbills concerned with RM 2493; radio
talk-back shows featured discussions of it; bridgeclubs and
ladies' teas focused on the need for everyone to know about and
to fight Madalyn O'Hair. Most reprehensible of all, (literally)
hundreds of newspapers across the land carried the story in small
articles, in advertisements, and in letters-to-the- editor
without bothering to check if it were true with either the FCC or
with Madalyn O'Hair. But always the churches pushed it -- in
sermons, in social activities, in newsletters, in reports, in
Sunday Schools, and in lectures for religion must have a devil;
religion must have an outside focal point to combat; religion
must rally the sheep.

This information is being sent to you on your FAX since the rumor
has now reached your area -- in its dozen or more times around
the country. Keep this information at hand: the rumor will be
back two years from now, and then five years from now, and in the
decade to come.         And we can affirm for you from here: **at no
time from December 1974 to date** has Madalyn Murray O'Hair ever
had anything at all do with RM 2493, nor has she ever attempted
to limit Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, or Freedom of
Conscience for anyone, or for any idea. This hysterical reaction
of the religious in the United States speaks of their
determination to believe what they want to believe and to hell
with the facts or the truth.

************************************************************


For more information, call the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) at (202) 632-7000. A message concerning the FCC Petition
Hoax is on the FCC's voice mail system. It is choice #3.


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		     Provided by:

	   AMERICAN ATHEIST ONLINE SERVICES
		    (512) 302-0223


	 P O Box 140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195
		 Voice: (512) 458-1244
		  FAX: (512) 467-9525


Please feel free to distribute this file to other online and
bulletin board systems. We ask only that proper credit be
given to the source.

 * WCE 2.0/2394 * "All Bibles are man-made." -- Thomas Edison

 * Origin: American Atheists Online (512) 302-0223  (1:382/1006.0)