Playboy Interview: Madalyn Murray

Until June 17, 1963, she was dismissed by many people as a litigious, belligerent, loudmouthed crank. On that day, however, the Supreme Court upheld her contention that prayer and Bible study should be outlawed in U.S. public schools, and Madalyn Murray became the country's best-known, and most-hated, atheist. She also became the churches' most formidable enemy when, undaunted, she promptly proceeded to launch another broadside at religion: a suit aimed at eliminating from tax exemption the churches' vast nationwide property holdings--a case which many lawyers concede she will probably win if it gets to the Supreme Court, and which, if she wins it, may be what one attorney has called "the biggest single blow ever suffered by organized religion in this country." Organized religion could hardly have an unlikelier nemesis.

Daughter of a Pittsburgh contractor, she studied law at Ohio Northern University and South Texas College, and served as a WAC officer-cryptographer on Eisenhower's staff during World War Two. A plain, plump, graying divorcee with two sons, she lived peacefully with her family in Baltimore--where she worked for 17 years as a psychiatric social worker--until her dismissal, within hours after she instituted her school-prayer suit, from a supervisory job in the city welfare department. Publishing a militant newsletter called The American Atheist, and organizing the Freethought Society of America, Inc. and Other Americans, Inc., legal-action atheist groups supported by contributions from their secret membership, she continued her anticlerical crusade at home and in an unprepossessing downtown office building, in which she and her sons soon became the targets for a three-year campaign of abusive mail, obscene telephone calls, bricks, beatings and death threats.

Finally, in June of last year, Mrs. Murray and her family fled Baltimore--where she and her son Bill, then 18, had just gone free on bail after being arraigned for assaulting several policemen during a fracas in front of her house--and flew to Hawaii for what she called "religious sanctuary from Christian persecution." In the intervening year, the governor of Hawaii has granted a request from the governor of Maryland to extradite Mrs. Murray and her son back to Baltimore for trial on the assault charges--which she claims were trumped up by the police as part of a Church-directed conspiracy to prevent her from pursuing her tax-the-churches suit. She had just petitioned the Hawaii Supreme Court for a reversal of the governor's decision whenPlayboycalled the embattled 46-year-old atheist (and onetime socialist) at her home in Honolulu with its request for an exclusive interview. Consenting readily, she invited us to meet her at Honolulu's Tripler Veterans' Hospital, where she was being treated for nerve injuries which she claims were inflicted by the beating she says she sustained at the hands of the police during the melee that precipitated her departure from Baltimore.

Our first two tape sessions took place at her hospital bedside, where she proceeded to hold forth on her various suits, trials and tribulations, on church and state, and on sex and marriage, with a pungent, four-letter vehemence undiminished by her bedridden condition. Our conversations continued some weeks later in the modest frame house which she shares with her mother, her brother and her 11-year-old son Garth on Honolulu's Spencer Street, where she confided that she would do "anything" rather than return to Maryland in compliance with the Hawaii Supreme Court's expected decision to permit her extradition.

No one can predict what the next chapter in the continuing melodrama of Madalyn Murray's life will be; but at this juncture, we feel that an exploration of her intransigent convictions, and of her continuing confrontations with the church, the law and the public, may shed some timely light on the issues involved in her private war on religion.

[Q] Playboy: Why are you an atheist, Mrs. Murray?

[A] Murray: Because religion is a crutch, and only the crippled need crutches. I can get around perfectly well on my own two feet, and so can everyone else with a backbone and a grain of common sense. One of the things I did during my 17 years as a psychiatric social worker was go around and find people with mental crutches, and every time I found one, I kicked those goddamn crutches until they flew. You know what happened? Every single one of those people have been able to walk without the crutches--better, in fact. Were they giving up anything intrinsically valuable? Just their irrational reliance upon superstitious and supernatural nonsense. Perhaps this sort of claptrap was good for the Stone Age, when people actually believed drat if they prayed for rain they would get it. But we're a grown-up world now, and it's time to put away childish things. But people don't, because most of them don't even know what atheism is. It's not a negation of anything. You don't have to negate what no one can prove exists. No, atheism is a very positive affirmation of man's ability to think for himself, to do for himself, to find answers to his own problems. I'm thrilled to feel that I can rely on myself totally and absolutely; that my children are being brought up so that when they meet a problem they can't cop out by foisting it off on God. Madalyn Murray's going to solve her own problems, and nobody's going to intervene. It's about time the world got up off its knees and looked at itself in the mirror and said: "Well, we are men. Let's start acting like it."

[Q] Playboy: What led you to become an atheist?

[A] Murray: Well, it started when I was very young. People attain the age of intellectual discretion at different times in their lives--sometimes a little early and sometimes a little late. I was about 12 or 13 years old when I reached this period. It was then that I was introduced to the Bible. We were living in Akron and I wasn't able to get to the library, so I had two things to read at home: a dictionary and a Bible. Well, I picked up the Bible and read it from cover to cover one weekend--just as if it were a novel--very rapidly, and I've never gotten over the shock of it. The miracles, the inconsistencies, the improbabilities, the impossibilities, the wretched history, the sordid sex, the sadism in it--the whole thing shocked me profoundly. I remember I looked in the kitchen at my mother and father and I thought: Can they really believe in all that? Of course, this was a superficial survey by a very young girl, but it left a traumatic impression. Later, when I started going to church, my first memories are of the minister getting up and accusing us of being full of sin, though he didn't say why; then they would pass the collection plate, and I got it in my mind that this had to do with purification of the soul, that we were being invited to buy expiation from our sins. So I gave it all up. It was too nonsensical.

[A] A few years later, I went off to college, a good, middle-class, very proper college, where I studied with, and under, good, middle-class, very proper people; which is to say, the kind who regard sex as distasteful and religious doubts as unthinkable; the kind to whom it would never occur to scrutinize the mores of society, who absolutely and unquestioningly accept the social system.

[Q] Playboy: What school was it?

[A] Murray: Ashland College in Ashland, Ohio--a Brethren institution, where two years of Bible study are required for graduation. One year I studied the Old Testament and one year the New Testament. It was a good, sound, thorough, but completely biased evaluation of the Bible, and I was delighted with it, because it helped to document my doubts; it gave me a framework within which I could be critical. But I can't deny that I was an intellectual prostitute along the way many, many times. I can remember one examination where they said, "Describe the Devil," and in order to get 12 points on that question one had to say that the Devil was red and had a forked tail and cloven hoofs and fangs and horns on his head. So I merrily wrote this answer down and got my 12 points. I always got straight hundreds in Bible study. My independent study continued for 20 years after this. So I do know the Bible very well from a Protestant point of view--which is what, along with my reason, entitles me to refute it. You can't rationally reject something until you know all about it. But at this time, of course, my convictions hadn't yet crystallized intellectually. I didn't know where my doubts were leading me.

[A] I recall that I had a terrible struggle finding anything antireligious in the school libraries. But many years later, the family returned to Pittsburgh and moved into a house where a woman had left a box of books containing 20 volumes on the history of the Inquisition.

[A] It was then that I found out there was a word for people like me: "heretic." I was kind of delighted to find I had an identity. And then, as I grew a little bit older and got interested in law, I read that Clarence Darrow didn't believe in the Bible either. So I read everything he had ever written, all of his trials, everything--to search out the philosophy of his disbelief. But I couldn't find it. Then I went into the Army, and one day, in the middle of a bull session, somebody called me an atheist. Believe it or not, it was the first time I'd ever heard the word. It goes to show you how a person can grow up in America and have a college education and still not know a goddamned thing. Anyway, when I learned that there was such a thing as an atheist, I looked it up--and found out that the definition fitted me to a tee. Finally, at the age of 24, I found out who--and what--I was. Better late than never.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think everyone should believe as you do--or rather, disbelieve?

[A] Murray: I think this would be the best of all possible worlds if everybody were an atheist or an agnostic or a humanist--his or her own particular brand--but as for compelling people to this, absolutely not. That would be just as infamous as their imposing their Christianity on me. At no time have I ever said that people should be stripped of their right to the insanity of belief in God. If they want to practice this kind of irrationality, that's their business. It won't get them anywhere; it certainly won't make them happier or more compassionate human beings; but if they want to chew that particular cud, they're welcome to it.

[Q] Playboy: Even as an atheist, would you concede that religion, at its best, can be and has been a constructive force, a source of strength and comfort for many people?

[A] Murray: If you're talking about Christianity, absolutely not. I don't think the Church has ever contributed anything to anybody, anyplace, at any time.

[Q] Playboy: How about the welfare and charity work to which many Catholic, Protestant and Jewish organizations dedicate themselves?

[A] Murray: Oh, they love to point to their hospitals and orphanages--most of which are restricted, by the way. But what do these "good works" amount to? They're nothing but a sop to the clerical conscience, a crumb thrown to the populace, alleviating some of the miseries which the Church itself--particularly the Catholic Church--has helped to instigate and perpetuate. I can't pinpoint a period in history or a place in the universe where religion has actually helped the welfare of man. On the contrary, the history of the Church has been a history of divisiveness, repression and reaction. For almost 2000 years, Christianity has held mankind back in politics, in economics, in industry, in science, in philosophy, in culture. Anyone who has even a surface knowledge of the Middle Ages, when the Church held unchallenged sway, can recognize this. But if any one age could be singled out as the worst in the history of Christendom, it would be the administration of Pope Pius XII, the most reactionary head of the most reactionary single force in the world--a force that binds men's minds, a force that divides them, a force that chains them so that they are unable to think and act for themselves.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about Pope John XXIII? Don't you think his humanitarian views, as enunciated in his Pacem in Terris, testify to the fact that enlightenment can flourish within the confines of the Church?

[A] Murray: There are good, humanitarian people everywhere--occasionally even in the Church. But John was an amoeba of goodness in a sea of waste, mistakenly believing that the Holy See could or would really change in any fundamental way. He was a tragic figure, for he raised a false hope, cast a brief ray of light that was snuffed out when he died. With Pope Paul in the saddle, the Church is firmly back in the hands of archconservative reaction.

[Q] Playboy: When you say that organized religion has contributed nothing to human welfare, do you include those many clergymen, such as Reverend Reeb, who have risked, and in some cases lost, their lives participating in civil rights demonstrations?

[A] Murray: Of course not. Reverend Reeb, by the way, was a well-known atheist, a Unitarian, and was not even buried with a religious ceremony. But those priests, nuns and ministers who aren't afraid to stand up and be counted are very much in the minority. They're the exception that proves the rule. Archbishop Toolen of Mobile-Birmingham has forbidden his priests to participate in Alabama civil rights demonstrations, and Cardinal McIntyre of California has punished priests in his diocese for getting involved in civil rights. These are the men who represent the Church mind--not the poor maverick priest who defies them by marching.

[A] But the most heinous crime of the Church has been perpetrated not against churchmen but against churchgoers. With its poisonous concepts of sin and divine punishment, it's warped and brainwashed countless millions. It would be impossible to calculate the psychic damage this has inflicted on generations of children who might have grown up into healthy, happy, productive, zestful human beings but for the burden of antisexual fear and guilt ingrained in them by the Church. This alone is enough to condemn religion.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about such Catholic canons as the vow of celibacy for priests, and the spiritual "marriage" of Catholic sisters to Christ?

[A] Murray: Sick, sick, sick! You think I've got wild ideas about sex? Think of those poor old dried-up women lying there on their solitary pallets yearning for Christ to come to them in a vision some night and take their maidenheads. By the time they realize he's not coming, it's no longer a maidenhead; it's a poor, sorry tent that nobody would be able to pierce--even Jesus with his wooden staff. It's such a waste. I don't think anybody should be celibate--and that goes for priests as well as nuns. I don't even like to alter a cat. We should all live life to the fullest, and sex is a part of life.

[Q] Playboy: As an atheist, do you also reject the idea of the virgin birth?

[A] Murray: Even if I believed there was a real Jesus, I wouldn't fall for that line of hogwash. The "Virgin" Mary should get a posthumous medal for telling the biggest goddamn lie that was ever told. Anybody who believes that will believe that the moon is made out of green cheese. If she could get away with something like that, maybe I should have tried it myself. I'm sure she played around as much as I have, and certainly was capable of an orgasm. Let's face it: If a son of God was ever born, it was because of this wonderful sex act that Joseph and Mary enjoyed one night.

[Q] Playboy: A moment ago, you said, "Even if I believed there was a real Jesus ..." Are you saying that you don't believe that there was such a person as Christ, or are you denying his divinity?

[A] Murray: I'm saying that there's absolutely no conclusive evidence that he ever really existed, even as a mortal. I don't believe he was a historical figure at all.

[Q] Playboy: Do you dismiss all the Biblical records of his life?

[A] Murray: Those so-called records were written by devout ecclesiasts who wanted to believe, and wanted others to believe, in the coming of a Messiah. Until someone proves otherwise, therefore, these stories must be considered nothing more than folk tales consisting in equal parts of legend and wish fulfillment. But there's never going to be any way of verifying them one way or the other. Scholars have found that references to Christ in Josephus were deliberately planted in the translation long after it was written, and the Latin references to Christ are not to a person of that name. In the Dead Sea Scrolls there was mention of a particular "teacher of righteousness" who had characteristics somewhat like those attributed to Christ, but it might easily have been someone else. About six years ago, Life magazine ran an article on the historicity of Jesus, and I was floored to find that they conceded the only evidence we have for his existence is in the Gospels. But don't take Life's word for it. In his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, the most definitive study that's ever been done on the subject, Albert Schweitzer admitted that there isn't a shred of conclusive proof that Christ ever lived, let alone was the son of God. He concludes that one must therefore accept both on faith. I reject both for the same reason.

[Q] Playboy: Do you also reject the idea of a life hereafter on the same grounds?

[A] Murray: Do you know anybody who's come back with a firsthand report on heaven? If you do, let me know. Until then, you'll pardon me if I don't buy it. If a humanist or an atheist or an agnostic says, "We'll bake you a pie," we can go right into the kitchen and bake it, and you can eat it an hour later. We don't promise you a pie in the sky by and by. It's charlatanry to promise people something that no one can be sure will ever be delivered. But it's even worse to offer people a reward, like children, for being good, and to threaten them with punishment if they're not. I'm reminded of the joke about Saint Peter sitting at the golden gate questioning a new arrival: "Well, my son, what good deeds have you done to get into heaven?" Well, the guy casts about for something to tell him and finally remembers that he gave five cents to a charwoman one night, and once he tipped a bootblack a nickel when he got his shoes shined, and another time he gave a beggar five shiny new pennies. And that's all he can think of that he's ever done for his fellow man. Well, Saint Peter looks at him and says, "Here's your fifteen cents back. You can go to hell."

[A] That guy didn't know how lucky he was. I agree with Mark Twain, who wrote about the hereafter that there's no sex in it; you can't eat anything in it; there is absolutely nothing physical in it. You wouldn't have your brain, you wouldn't have any sensations, you wouldn't be able to enjoy anything--unless you're queer for hymn singing and harp playing. So who needs it? Speaking for myself, I'd rather go to hell.

[Q] Playboy: Because of your success in persuading the Supreme Court to outlaw school prayer in public schools, many outraged Christians seem to feel that's just where you belong. What made you decide to pursue your suit in the face of this predictable indignation?

[A] Murray: I was shamed into it by my son, Bill, who came to me in 1960--he was 14 then--and said: "Mother, you've been professing that you're an atheist for a long time now. Well, I don't believe in God either, but every day in school I'm forced to say prayers, and I feel like a hypocrite. Why should I be compelled to betray my beliefs?" I couldn't answer him. He quoted the old parable to me: "It is not by their words, but by their deeds that ye shall know them"--pointing out that if I was a true atheist, I would not permit the public schools of America to force him to read the Bible and say prayers against his will. He was right. Words divorced from action supporting them are meaningless and hypocritical. So we began the suit. And finally we won it. I knew it wasn't going to make me the most popular woman in Baltimore, but I sure as hell didn't anticipate the tidal wave of virulent, vindictive, murderous hatred that thundered down on top of me and my family in its wake.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about it.

[A] Murray: God, where should I begin? Well, it started fairly predictably with economic reprisals. Now, I'd been a psychiatric social worker for 17 years, but within 24 hours after I started the case, I was fired from my job as a supervisor in the city public welfare department. And I was unable to find another one, because the moment I would go in anywhere in town and say that my name was Madalyn Murray, no matter what the job opening, I found the job filled; no matter how good my qualifications, they were never quite good enough. So my income was completely cut off. The second kind of reprisal was psychological. The first episode was with our mail, which began to arrive, if at all, slit open and empty--just empty envelopes. Except for the obscene and abusive letters from good Christians all over the country, calling me a bitch and a Lesbian and a Communist for instituting the school-prayer suit--they somehow arrived intact, and by the bushel-basketful. Hundreds of them actually threatened our lives; we had to turn a lot of them over to the FBI, because they were obviously written by psychopaths, and you couldn't be sure whether or not they were going to act on their very explicit threats. None did, but it didn't help us sleep any better at night.

[A] Neither did the incredible anonymous phone calls we'd get at every hour of the day and night, which were more or less along the same lines as the letters. One of them was a particular gem. I was in the VA hospital in Baltimore, and I had just had a very critical operation; they didn't think I was going to make it. They had just wheeled me back to my bed after two days in the recovery room when this call came in for me, and somebody who wouldn't give his name told me very seriously and sympathetically that my father had just died and that I should be prepared to come home and take care of my mother. Well, I called home in a state of shock, and my mother answered, and I asked her about Father, and she said, "What are you talking about? He's sitting here at this moment eating bacon and eggs." Obviously, that call had been calculated to kill me, because whoever it was knew that I was at a low ebb there in the hospital.

[A] Then they began to take more direct action. My Freethought Society office was broken into; our cars were vandalized repeatedly; every window in the house was broken more times than I can count, every flower in my garden trampled into the ground, all my maple trees uprooted; my property looked like a cyclone had hit it. This is the kind of thing that went on constantly, constantly, over a three-year period. But it was just child's play compared to the reprisals visited upon my son Bill. He'd go to school every day and hand in his homework, and a couple of days later many of his teachers would say to him, "You didn't hand in your homework." Or he'd take a test and about a week later many of his teachers would tell him, "You didn't hand in your test paper. You'll have to take the test again this afternoon." This was a dreadful reprisal to take against a 14-year-old boy. It got to the point where he had to make carbon copies of all his homework and all his tests to prove that he had submitted them. But that's nothing to what happened after school, both to him and to his little brother, Garth. I lost count of the times they came home bloodied and beaten up by gangs of teenage punks; five and six of them at a time would gang up on them and beat the living hell out of them. Many's the time I've stood them off myself to protect my sons, and these fine young Christians have spat in my face till spittle dripped down on my dress. Time and again we'd take them into magistrate's court armed with damning evidence and eyewitness testimony, but the little bastards were exonerated every time.

[A] But I haven't told you the worst. The neighborhood children, of course, were forbidden by their parents to play with my little boy, Garth, so I finally got him a little kitten to play with. A couple of weeks later we found it on the porch with its neck wrung. And then late one night our house was attacked with stones and bricks by five or six young Christians, and my father got very upset and frightened. Well, the next day he dropped dead of a heart attack. The community knew very well that he had a heart condition, so I lay a murder to the city of Baltimore.

[Q] Playboy: Sometime late in 1963, as we understand it, in the midst of all these harassments, your son Bill, then 18, started dating a 17-year-old Baltimore girl named Susan Abramovitz. In March of last year, according to court records, she left home because of family friction and moved in with you and your family, where she remained for several months. Then, on June 2, 1964, a petition filed by her parents was granted by the Baltimore Criminal Court, charging that you and your son "encouraged Susan to renounce her religion and become an atheist," and ordering you to give Susan into the care of her aunt and uncle, and charging you and Bill to refrain from all contact with Susan--in person, by phone or by letter--until further notice. When Susan subsequently ran off to New York in defiance of the court order, she was cited for contempt of court--along with you and Bill, who were sentenced in absentia to one year and six months, respectively, in the Baltimore city jail. Why did you defy the court order?

[A] Murray: For the simple reason that by the time that contempt charge was filed, Bill and Susan were married, and he had become her legal guardian. Just for the record, though, I'd like to explain why I took Susan into my home in the first place. Her parents were making life hell for her with impossible restrictions and disciplines, and it finally came to a showdown. So when she asked to stay with us for a few days, I said yes, intending to straighten things out with her parents when both sides calmed down a bit. Well, I called them up a few days later to discuss it, but they were extremely rude and abusive to me, and said they didn't want her back anyway. What was I supposed to do? Kick her out in the street? I guess all the neighborhood talk made them change their minds, though, because the next thing I knew we had that court order slapped on us without a hearing. Well, those kids loved each other and weren't about to be separated by a court order, so they got married--with my blessings.

[Q] Playboy: When was it that the police came to your house to take Susan into custody?

[A] Murray: Eight days after the kids were married. She and Bill hadn't been home 15 minutes from their honeymoon when a police car pulled up in front of the house, and another behind the house--surrounding us. We got our tape recorder and turned it on and Bill and I went out to meet this cop, and I asked him, "What do you want?" He said, "I'm here to pick up Susan Abramovitz." Bill said, "There's no Susan Abramovitz here. There's a Susan Murray here." I said, "Do you have a pickup warrant?" He said, "No." "Then you have no jurisdiction here," I said. "If she puts her goddamned foot out into the street," he said, "I'm going to pick her up." I've got this on a tape recorder. So I said to him, "Look, this is a hostile neighborhood. We don't want trouble here. I'm going to take Susan to my office at 2502 North Calvert Street. You can come down there and talk to me. My attorney will be there. We will be glad to talk to the judge, the police, anybody else, but it's got to be in a neutral business district and not in a hostile neighborhood." And he said, "If you bring the goddamned girl out here, I'm going to lock her up."

[A] Well, with police cars front and back, and him calling for more help--we had seen him put in an order for more squad cars--we decided to make a break for it, to get into the car and take off. Well, Susan and I made it to the car, but I looked back and saw the policemen stopping my son with a billy club raised, so that he couldn't follow us. So we took off. I said to Susan, "There's going to be trouble. I'm going to drop you off someplace and you sit there until I can come back."

[A] So I drove her about five blocks away and left her on a neighbor's back porch and drove back. By the time I got back home, there were seven police cars in front of my house, two police cars behind my house, a minimum of 15 policemen on the front lawn, and a mob of at least 100 to 250 people milling around. And I walked through the melee there, and I said: "What's the matter? Is there a criminal at large?" Well, Bill was nowhere to be seen. I demanded to know where he was and the cops said he'd been taken off to jail. I found out later what had happened during the five minutes I was away taking Susan to safety. This cop who had raised his billy club on Bill started to give him a beating. Then another cop joined in, and in a few minutes, when the reinforcements arrived, there were four policemen there giving Bill a terrific beating.

[Q] Playboy: According to the sworn testimony of those policemen and several eyewitnesses, Bill started the fight by shoving, then striking a patrolman in the nose and knocking off his glasses in an attempt to prevent him from intercepting Susan on her way out of the house.

[A] Murray: Naturally they'd say that. The fact remains that there were four of them beating up on one 18-year-old boy.

[Q] Playboy: Not according to their depositions.

[A] Murray: You expect them to admit it? But wait till you hear what happened next. One of our neighbors saw the cops beating Bill and he rushed out and said, "Can I help?" and promptly waded in with the four cops.

[Q] Playboy: Again, this is denied by eyewitnesses.

[A] Murray: Well, my mother was an eyewitness, and she was watching all this through the screen door, and when the neighbor started in on Bill, she finally rushed out--she's a very frail 73 years old--and tried to beat him off with her scrawny, rheumatic little fists. Well, he turns and says to one of the policemen: "Get that fucking bitch off of me!" And the policeman just reaches out, taps Mother on the head once with his club, and she falls to the ground unconscious.

[Q] Playboy: Again, this contradicts police testimony, which denies flatly that anyone struck her. According to the officer involved and several witnesses, she fainted in the midst of the struggle.

[A] Murray: Well, she may be frail, but she isn't so old that she doesn't know the difference between a fainting spell and a rap on the head from a billy club. In any case, my brother, who has a bad heart, was watching all this from inside the house. He was afraid to get tangled up in it for fear he'd have a heart attack, but when he saw her get clubbed, he ran out and picked her up and carried her back inside and put her on the couch, which is where I found her, still unconscious, when I got back to the house. I also found two police officers in the house; they had broken the screen door open.

[A] I said: "What are you doing in my house?" And they said: "It's none of your goddamn business." And I said: "Well, you get the hell out of here." And they said: "We'll get out of here when we goddamn well please." I said: "You'll get the hell out right now. Out!" And I took one of them firmly by the elbow and steered him to the door; to my astonishment, he went like a lamb. I had him halfway out the door when the bloodthirsty crowd outside spotted us, and one of the four policemen on the porch yelled, "Get that bitch out here!" And a second policeman snarled, "Yeah. Bring the bitch out!" Just like that, the cop I had by the elbow whirled and pounced on me like a bird of prey, and started to drag me out the front door. Well, I tried desperately to back up, and I had gotten back as far as the living room when the two policemen in there grabbed me and started pounding on me. I'll tell you, they gave me judo cuts; they kicked me in the kidneys with their knees; they really worked me over.

[Q] Playboy: None of this gibes with the police version of what took place. They deny all of your allegations.

[A] Murray: Of course they do. But I've got the bruises to prove it, buddy. I can assure you they weren't self-inflicted. I've never had a beating like that one. For the next 20 minutes I hung onto anything I could hang onto while they tried to drag me outside. I hung onto chairs. I hung onto the television set. I hung onto the door frame. I hung onto the doorknob. I hung onto the screen door. My fingernails were completely ripped off; they were just blood. Every single inch of the way I was breaking holds, grabbing onto anything, hanging on with my legs, with my hands. Finally they had me out on the front porch, and I locked my elbow through the iron banister outside, but they pulled me off of it and started rolling me across the lawn, pummeling me every inch of the way while that crowd just kept screaming: "Hit her again, hit her again, kill her, kill her, that bitch, hit her again, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch!"

[A] You'd think everybody had suddenly gone insane. And you should have seen the hatred, the blood lust in their faces as those cops beat and dragged me 30 feet across the lawn and onto the street. When they got me into the street, one of them put handcuffs on me and then dragged me up off the ground, bodily, by the cuffs. My arm was dangling there, the circulation in my hand completely cut off. Completely. My hand turned black. I hadn't landed a blow during the whole melee, but I was in such agony with those cuffs that I pulled back my leg and kicked that son of a bitch in the shins until his teeth rattled. Immediately, he yelled, "Witness, everybody--witness! Mrs. Murray has assaulted me." And that's the main charge against me today. That's why they want to extradite me to Maryland--because I kicked a poor, helpless little cop in the shins. Well, they decided they'd haul me off bodily to the paddy wagon, and by God, I decided I wasn't going to go without a struggle, handcuffed or not handcuffed, so when they tried to walk me off, I just lifted my feet up and threw them off balance.

[A] One of them said, "You bitch, just wait until you get in that wagon." I thought, "Oh, oh, I'm in for it." So I stuck one foot between this guy's two legs on the left and one foot between the guy's two legs on the right, and I tripped them and they fell on their faces.

[A] One of them said, "I'll grind your fucking face into the ground, you bitch!" And they dragged me up, and I stuck my feet in between them again, and down they went again. This is the other charge against me--that I assaulted two other officers by kicking them in order to trip them. Well, they threw me in that wagon and took me off to jail, where they kept me incommunicado for ten hours.

[Q] Playboy: The police flatly deny this.

[A] Murray: They're lying, as usual. The only way my attorney found out I was in jail was when he heard it on the radio, or otherwise he would never have come to our rescue. And I do mean rescue, because I found out when I got to jail that the police had taken my son into a cell and beaten him up. They dumped him on the floor and stomped on him while he was lying there.

[Q] Playboy: How do you know this? Did you see it happen?

[A] Murray: I was taken to the police station where my son was, and as I sat in the paddy wagon outside, I heard him being cursed and beaten. Bill told me all about it later. But he didn't have to, because when they brought him out of the prisoner lockup, he had a bootprint on the left side of his face; I saw it with my own eyes. He had another bootprint on the middle of his chest; and another one on the fly of his pants. The sons of bitches had kicked him in the genitals. When the judge brought him out to have him arraigned with me on those trumped-up assault charges, I said, "Judge, look at that boy's face." And I said to the newspaper reporters, "Look at the footmarks on him. Please note this." But not a word about it appeared in the newspapers.

[Q] Playboy: Nor are there medical records of any injuries sustained by your son on this date, though he was examined by a doctor at his own request.

[A] Murray: My son and I were taken to University Hospital and my mother was taken, unconscious for over three hours, to Union Memorial Hospital--that's a pretty long faint! UPI has a picture of me, printed in The Washington Post, swathed in bandages as the police forced me into the paddy wagon again after I was released from the hospital. It's interesting to hear now that there are no hospital records. But then, a lot of things seem to happen in Baltimore for which there are no records. I know it's only my word against theirs, and that my word wouldn't be worth two cents in a Baltimore court of law. But I know I'm telling the truth, and they know they're lying.

[A] Anyway, we put up bail and finally went home. Well, you talk about terror; somebody tried to break into our house three times that night. We got my old German Luger out, and we found the old shells to it and filled it up. And we called our attorney out there, Joe Wase, who brought out a private detective with him--but too late, unfortunately, to catch them in the act. You know who they were? Men in navy-blue pants and short-sleeved white shirts. We caught one of them in a flashlight beam and I saw a badge with the word "Lieutenant" on it. Two others we saw with badges on. So we knew that the police were trying to get into our house. Not openly, but surreptitiously. The light in our back yard was put out, and the street light had a stone hurled through it. And our dog was silenced by a piece of wood rammed into his jaws. We had that tape recording in the house, incriminating the cops in a clear case of illegal entry, and they wanted it back.

[Q] Playboy: As you no doubt know, Mrs. Murray, tape recordings cannot be used as evidence in court, so it seems doubtful that the police would risk violating the law to obtain this one. In any case, do you have any witnesses, apart from your own family, willing to swear that the housebreakers were policemen?

[A] Murray: No; as I said, my lawyer and the private detective got there too late. So I must be making this all up--right?

[Q] Playboy: We didn't mean to imply any such thing. But you understand, don't you, that police spokesmen have flatly denied these charges?

[A] Murray: I understand all too well. Anyway, shall I go on with my version--the true version--of what happened?

[Q] Playboy: By all means.

[A] Murray: Well, after that night we lived in fear of our lives. The beating we'd gotten and the three attacks on the house were just a sample of things to come if we were foolish enough to stick around like sitting ducks. Even if we weren't murdered in our beds before the trial, I knew that if they got us into a courtroom, we'd get at least 200 years--plus 60 days extra for every time we breathed, blinked or raised our eyebrows.

[A] [According to the Baltimore state's attorney's office, there are a total of ten criminal assault charges against Mrs. Murray and her son--carrying maximum sentences, if they are convicted on all counts, of ten years for each of them.]

[A] Murray: Anyway, after another sleepless night, I decided that we'd have to take our chances with the law and get the hell out of Baltimore. I thought of seeking asylum in Canada or Australia or England, but I didn't want to leave the United States, because for better or worse I'm an American, and this is my land; so I decided to fight it out on home ground, and finally we hit upon Hawaii, because of the liberal atmosphere created by its racial admixture, and because of its relatively large population of Buddhists, who are largely nontheistic, and might therefore be more tolerant of our views. So we packed up all the worldly possessions we could carry with us and took the next flight to Hawaii from Washington.

[Q] Playboy: How many were in your party?

[A] Murray: Six of us--my mother, my brother, my two sons, Bill's wife and me. And I can tell you, it took just about every cent we had to our name just to pay the plane fare. When we arrived, we had about $15 left among us. We were really in pitiful shape. But we were together, and we were alive, and this was all that mattered.

[Q] Playboy: How did you find a place to stay?

[A] Murray: Well, we were just floored by the kindness of the people here. The minister of the Unitarian Church in Honolulu invited us over to his office the day we arrived and told us to make it our headquarters while we looked for a permanent residence. When we couldn't find a place for about a week, he let us live in the church; that's ironic, isn't it? But it points up the vastly different intellectual atmosphere that prevails here in Hawaii. Anyway, we rustled up some mattresses and put them on the floor and slept there, cooked there and ate there until we found a home. I was overwhelmed by the number of calls we got from people offering to rent us houses, to take us out to dinner, to drive us around house hunting. Everyone was just indescribably kind. Finally we moved into a house offered to us for an incredible $125 a month by a man who feels that the separation of church and state is a valid constitutional issue which should be fought for. And we've found us a brilliant lawyer to help us fight extradition back to Maryland--which the Catholic governor of Hawaii has already granted. We've appealed the case to the state supreme court, which is considering its decision now.

[Q] Playboy: If the court upholds the governor's decision, what will you do?

[A] Murray: Well, whatever happens, I won't go back to Maryland, because I'd never get out again. Even if I managed to stay alive long enough to stand trial, I'd "accidentally" fall in my cell and fracture my skull or something. As a last resort, if I found I had no other alternative to returning, I would seriously consider suicide. I don't say this with any emotion. It's just that I'd much rather blow my own brains out than have it done for me in a Baltimore jail cell. You think I'm being paranoiac? I know them. There've been people found mysteriously dead in those Baltimore police cells before, and I don't intend to be one of them.

[Q] Playboy: Well, you haven't been extradited yet. Meanwhile, where are you getting the money to pay your landlord and your lawyer?

[A] Murray: It's been a terrific struggle, because we had to leave my Freethought Society offset printing plant and all of my office equipment behind when we fled Maryland, and my headquarters there has since been taken over by a group of so-called atheists who have denounced me, deposed me as president and installed themselves as the board of directors, treasurer, secretary, managing editor and general manager of the organization. I mean they've just taken over the entire operation, which I founded and built up and ran, lock, stock and barrel. But we've managed to establish sort of a government in exile here, after a fashion; we're turning out our newsletter again, and the contributions are beginning to trickle in, now that our members know where to find us--enough to live on, but only barely enough to fight extradition, and not nearly enough to keep our tax-the-churches suit alive. We desperately need funds if this case is going to stand a chance of reaching the Supreme Court--which is the only place we'll win it.

[Q] Playboy: Considering the repercussions of the school-prayer case, why did you decide to take on the tax-the-churches suit?

[A] Murray: Once involved in the school-prayer fight, I rapidly became aware of, and appalled by, the political and economic power of the Church in America--all based on the violation of one of our nation's canon laws: the separation of church and state. The churches rose to power on the income from tax-free property. What earthly--or heavenly--right have they got to enjoy a privilege denied to everyone else, even including nonprofit organizations? None! My contention is that with the churches exempted from property taxation, you and I have to pay that much more in taxes--about $140 a year per family, according to a recent survey--to make up for what they're not contributing. If this exemption were rescinded, our property taxes would be substantially lowered, and those who rent houses and apartments would consequently be able to pass along this savings in the form of lowered rents. It could have a profoundly salubrious effect on the entire economy. I decided that if nobody else was going to do anything to rectify this colossal inequity, I'd have to do it myself. So I instituted a suit against the city of Baltimore demanding that the city assessor be specifically ordered to assess the Church for its vast property holdings in the city, and that the city tax collector then be instructed to collect the taxes once the assessment has been made.

[Q] Playboy: Have you made any estimate of approximately how many annual tax dollars the churches will have to pay if you win your suit?

[A] Murray: On a nationwide basis, I would guess that the various churches would have to pay annually an amount at least equal to the national debt. But it's impossible for me to make an exact estimate, because the churches hide their wealth in every way they can--deliberate falsification as to the value of property, registering it under phony names in order to obscure the fact that the Church owns the property. In Baltimore alone, I know that the Roman Catholic Church alone would have to pay taxes of almost $3,000,000 a year. This is why the Roman Catholic Church has become a co-defendant with the city in the suit--an unprecedented occurrence in a case of this nature. I'm going after them where they live--in their pocketbooks--and they're fighting for their lives. They have a tremendous amount at stake--more than any other church, because they're the biggest property owners and they've dabbled in business more than any other church. More than any other church, they've been greedy about grabbing up land and property--not just in Baltimore, but all over the country. According to a Catholic priest writing in The Wall Street Journal, the assets and real-estate holdings of the Church "exceed those of Standard Oil, A.T.&T. and U.S. Steel combined." I'd make an educated guess that 20 to 25 percent of the taxable property in the U.S. is Church-owned. In a recent book, Church Wealth and Business Income, it was estimated that this property--all of it tax-exempt--is worth upwards of 80 billion dollars. I know that's a fantastic, unbelievable figure, but there's every reason to believe that it's on the conservative side; and this amount is increasing yearly at a geometric rate. They're moving into everything--gas stations, banks, television stations, supermarket chains, hotels, steel mills, resort areas, farms, wine factories, warehouses, bottling works, printing plants, schools, theaters--everything you could conceivably think of that has nothing to do with religion, they are moving into big. They're even coming in as stockholders in the big oil companies, and the Bank of America is almost entirely owned by the Catholic Church. And mind you--they don't pay a penny in taxes on any of it, even on the income from rentals. The Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus, for example, pays no income tax on any of its vast rental revenue--which comes from such sources as the land on which Yankee Stadium stands. Almost every constitutional authority has spoken on this issue, and the overwhelming consensus is that we will win if we can get it to the U.S. Supreme Court. But we won't unless thousands of people help me raise the money to pay the legal fees--at least $40,000.

[Q] Playboy: You've been quoted as saying that the Catholic Church in Baltimore was behind a conspiracy to have you and your family jailed on some pretext so that you would be unable to pursue this suit, and that this is why you were subjected to a "campaign of extralegal harassment" by the police, the courts and the citizens of Baltimore. Do you really believe that?

[A] Murray: I can't think of any other plausible explanation for this vendetta. But quite apart from the Church's financial self-interest in getting me out of the way, Baltimore is an overwhelmingly Catholic city and, like most good Christians, they felt we ought to be punished for our unorthodox views. Intolerance has always been one of the cornerstones of Christianity--the glorious heritage of the Inquisition. It's no coincidence that most of my abusive mail--sentencing me to exquisite Oriental tortures and relegating me to hell-fire and damnation--comes from self-admitted Catholics.

[Q] Playboy: Are you still receiving that kind of mail here in Hawaii?

[A] Murray: For some reason, the letters we've been getting here have been just a little bit more rational; I wonder what's happened to our lunatic fringe. I kind of miss them.

[Q] Playboy: Is it true that you received a letter in Baltimore composed only of the word "Kill" clipped from dozens of magazines and newspapers, and pasted onto a sheet of paper in the style of a blackmail note?

[A] Murray: Absolutely. It was from a man who had written to me over a period of about two years. He started out in his first letter with something innocuous like: "You're a damn fool!" But each successive letter got more and more violent, until he came to the point where he was very explicit in his threats. We turned that whole series of letters over to the FBI. One of the things this guy said he was going to do to me was put a gun up my ass and blow the crap out between my eyes. Nice? But that's mild compared to some of them. I've gotten literally thousands in the same vein. Someday I'd like to publish a book of these mash notes. It would be an extraordinary document. I'd call it Letters from Christians.

[Q] Playboy: Would you include the photograph of yourself which you received smeared with feces?

[A] Murray: That would be the frontispiece. This was a picture of my mother and me coming out of the United States Supreme Court, with fecal matter smeared across our faces. They wrapped it in wax paper so that when I received it I'd get the full impact of the message. Though I haven't gotten anything quite that original lately, there's still never a dull moment in my mailbox. Here's a dilly that came in the other day. I'll read it aloud, if I may:

I dreamed that Mrs. Murray died

And no one but the Devil cried.

He had plenty more work for her to do;

And people like her were very few.

Well, it was a blow that would last him long;

He couldn't find anyone else so very wrong.

But no one in the city cried;

Most all were glad that she had died,

And thought it was a shame that fate was slow

And death had not snatched her long ago.

The churches all looked on in awe and wondered why

She could change a law.

In death her face looked like a stone;

So cold, so hard in life it had grown;

They had dressed her like a fashion show;

Expensively dressed and no place to go;

There was no service at the grave;

Her soul was gone too late to save.

It is a shame she went to hell;

But at least down there she cannot yell;

And rant and rave about the prayers.

How could she creep in unawares and

Change the routine of our schools?

We have always had our religious rules;

I wonder if she is allowed to pass the golden gate.

Can't Saint Peter see her heart of hate?

[A] Beautiful, isn't it? Kind of gets you right here. That's from one of my most faithful correspondents: "Anonymous." And here's another one, signed "I Pity You." Unusual name, don't you think? I have so many people pitying me and praying for me that I'll probably be the only atheist that gets into heaven.

[A] Here's another--this one from a sophomore in the State University of New York, College of Oswego. He says:

[A] I'd like to refer you to Hugh Hefner, author of The Playboy Philosophy, which appears in Playboy magazine. He is doing an excellent job of revealing to the masses the religious and superstitious background of many of our laws, pointing out the clear stupidity of these laws in the light of reason. More power to both of you.

[A] How about that? We occasionally get an intelligent letter like this one mixed with the rest, but most of them are like this gem:

[A] How would you like to die of cancer? Or be blind the rest of your miserable haunted life? Filled with such fear you have to get a police dog. Ha. You are so filled with hate you will poison yourself to death. You are making a screwball out of your none-too-bright dopey-looking son, you big crude brawling peasant. Time will fix you but good. Leprosy is too good for you. Shame on you. You aren't a mother or even a woman, you are a no-good thing.

[A] Isn't that delightful? But that's nothing compared to some of the goodies I keep in this box labeled Nut Mail. Shall I read you excerpts from a random sampling?

[Q] Playboy: Please.

[A] Murray: You asked for it. Here goes: "You should be shot!" ... "Why don't you go peddle your slop in Russia?" ... "you wickid anamal" ... "I will kill you!" ... "Commie, Commie, Commie!" ... "Somebody is going to put a bullet through your fat ass, you scum, you masculine Lesbian bitch!" ... "You will be killed before too long. Or maybe your pretty little baby boy. The queer-looking bastard. You are a bitch and your son is a bastard" ... "Slut! Slut! Slut! Bitch slut from the Devil!" That'll give you the general idea. Oh--just one more; I love this one: "May Jesus, who you so vigorously deny, change you into a Paul."

[A] Isn't that lovely? Christine Jorgensen had to go to Sweden for an operation, but me they'll fix with faith--painlessly and for nothing. I hate to disappoint them, but I'm not the least bit interested in being a man. I'm perfectly satisfied with the female role.

[Q] Playboy: What is the proper female role, in your opinion?

[A] Murray: Well, as a militant feminist, I believe in complete equality with men: intellectual, professional, economic, social and sexual; they're all equally essential, and they're all equally lacking in American society today.

[Q] Playboy: According to many sociologists, American women have never enjoyed greater freedom and equality, sexually and otherwise, than they do today.

[A] Murray: Let's distinguish between freedom and equality. The modern American woman may be more liberated sexually than her mother was, but I don't think she enjoys a bit more sexual equality. The American male continues to use her sexually for one thing: a means to the end of his own ejaculation. It doesn't seem to occur to him that she might be a worth-while end in herself, or to see to it that she has a proper sexual release. And, to him, sex appeal is directly proportional to the immensity of a woman's tits. I'm not saying that all American men are this way, but nine out of ten are breast-fixated, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am cretins who just don't give a damn about anyone's gratification but their own.

[A] If you're talking about intellectual and social equality for women, we're not much better off. We're just beginning to break the ice. America is still very much a male-dominated society. Most American men feel threatened sexually unless they're taller than the female, more intellectual, better educated, better paid and higher placed statuswise in the business world. They've got to be the authority, the final word. They say they're looking for a girl just like the girl who married dear old dad, but what they really want, and usually get, is an empty-headed little chick who's very young and very physical--and very submissive. Well, I just can't see either a man or a woman in a dependency position, because from this sort of relationship flows a feeling of superiority on one side and inferiority on the other, and that's a form of slow poison. As I see it, men wouldn't want somebody inferior to them unless they felt inadequate themselves. They're intimidated by a mature woman.

[Q] Playboy: Like yourself?

[A] Murray: Yes, as a matter of fact. I think I actually frighten men. I think I scare the hell out of them time after time. It's going to take a pretty big man to tame this shrew. I need somebody who can at least stand up to me and slug it out, toe to toe. I don't mean a physical battle. I mean a man who would lay me, and when he was done, I'd say: "Oh, brother, I've been laid." Or if we had an argument, he would stand up and engage in intellectual combat and not go off and mope in the corner, or take reprisals, or go to drink. I want somebody who's whole and wholesome and has as much zest for living as I have. But I haven't found one who fills the bill; you can't hardly find them kind no more. And I know many women my size, psychologically and intellectually, who have the same problem. Most women don't, of course, because they don't make the same demands, because they're not fully women--which is to say, alive and constantly growing. I haven't had an enduring love relationship, because I'm growing constantly, and at a brisk rate. I'm changing constantly and enlarging my viewpoints, and I've simply never met a man who could keep pace. So men finally bore me. They get in a rut. I saw one of my ex-lovers ten years later and was shocked to realize he had not moved an inch intellectually or emotionally from his position of a decade before.

[Q] Playboy: How many lovers have you had, if you don't mind our asking?

[A] Murray: You've got a hell of a nerve, but I don't really mind. I've had--if you count my marriage as an affair, which I would like to do rather than count it as a marriage, because I'm not proud of having been married--I've had five affairs, all of them real wingdings. I've enjoyed every goddamned minute of them, but sooner or later I've outgrown every one of them, and when I did I got fed up and threw them out. If they can't keep up with me, the hell with them.

[Q] Playboy: Suppose a man were to get fed up with you first. What then?

[A] Murray: Well, then he should be the one to pick up and leave. No hard feelings. I don't feel that people should glom onto other people. I feel that relationships should be nice and easy and convenient and happy and not strictured with legality or jealousy.

[Q] Playboy: When you say "not strictured with legality," are you saying that you don't think people ought to get married?

[A] Murray: Well, I've found that most people who are bound together legally would be a damn sight happier together--or apart--if they were released from the contract. A man--woman relationship is physical and emotional, not legal. Legality can't create love if it isn't there, or preserve it if it's dying, but it can destroy love by making it compulsory. You don't need a marriage license to live with someone, to have the security of a home, to rear any number of children, to have years of companionship; it's not illegal. But the moment you want to screw somebody, you have to get a license from the state to use your genital organs--or run the risk of being charged with any number of crimes carrying sentences up to and including death. So sex is really the only sensible reason for getting married. But I'd suggest pulling down the shades instead. In the long run, it's cheaper--and more fun.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about the heritage of puritanical sexual guilt which many social scientists assert precipitates early marriages in this country?

[A] Murray: It's shit for the birds. When will we grow up? Sex is where you find it. I say take it and enjoy it. Give and receive freely, without fear, without guilt and without contractual obligations.

[Q] Playboy: Starting at what age?

[A] Murray: Let nature decide. When a cow is biologically ready to have sex relations, she mates with the nearest well-hung bull. When a flower is ready to scatter its seed, it pollinates. It's the same way throughout nature--except with man, who tries to postpone consummation of his sex drive, unsuccessfully, for the most part, for six or eight years after he reaches puberty. By the time it's considered socially acceptable to start screwing, most of us are sexually constipated, and this is often an incurable condition. I think young people should be able to have their first sexual love affair whenever they feel like it. In the case of most girls, this would be around 13 or 14; with most boys, around 15 or 16.

[Q] Playboy: What about VD and pregnancy?

[A] Murray: They should be taught about sex, sex hygiene and contraceptive methods starting in the sixth grade, and whenever they want to try it, they should be allowed to go at it without supervision or restriction--in their parents' bedroom, on the grass in a park, in a motel; it doesn't matter, as long as the setting is private and pleasant. If we did all this, our kids would grow up into happier, healthier human beings. But we won't, of course. It would make too much sense.

[Q] Playboy: Would you call yourself an advocate of free love?

[A] Murray: I'd describe myself as a sexual libertarian--but I'm not a libertine. "To each his own" is my motto. If anybody wants to engage in any kind of sexual activity with any consenting partner, that is their business. I don't feel that I can sit in judgment on them, or that society can sit in judgment on them. Anybody can do anything they damn well please, as long as the relationship isn't exploitive. And I don't feel that legality should have anything to do with it. There are certain bodily functions of mine which I will not allow to be supervised. One of these is eating. Nobody's going to license me to do this. Another one is bodily disposals. I will defecate and urinate when I damn well please and as the spirit--and the physical necessity--moves me. And my sex life is peculiarly my own. I will engage in sexual activity with a consenting male any time and any place I damn well please.

[Q] Playboy: Do you have any immediate plans along these lines?

[A] Murray: It's none of your business, but as a matter of fact, I do. I've been completely without a sex life for about five years now--ever since I began the school-prayer suit--and if you don't think that's a hardship for a hot-blooded woman in her prime, just try it. I'm taking applications for stud service at this address--care of Good and Haffner, Attorneys, 1010 Standard Building, Cleveland 13, Ohio--as well as contributions for our tax-the-churches suit. Please enclose photograph, vital statistics, and a check for the lawsuit.

[Q] Playboy: Are there any particular qualifications you're looking for?

[A] Murray: No, I just want a man--a real, two-balled masculine guy--and there aren't many of them around, believe me. But I do want somebody my own age, and somebody who has brains enough to keep me interested and to earn enough money to support me in the style to which I've become accustomed. And I want a big man physically as well as intellectually. I want a man with the thigh muscles to give me a good frolic in the sack, the kind who'll tear hell out of a thick steak, and yet who can go to the ballet with me and discuss Hegelian dialectic and know what the hell he's talking about. I want a strong man, but a gentle one. And, most unlikely of all, but most essential, I want a man with a capacity for love--to give it generously and accept it joyously. I also want somebody who, when I say, "Let's call it quits," won't hang on; who'll say, "All right, it was fun while it lasted. So long and good luck."

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever known a man like that?

[A] Murray: No, but there was one who came close, and I loved him madly for some time. I don't think anybody in the world thought he was gentle, but he was gentle with me. And he treated me like a woman, which is all I really ask or want. I felt handled by him, and this is a good feeling. But, unfortunately, he never outgrew his particular intellectual commitment, so I outgrew him. He was an engineer and he was almost totally involved in his work; engineers have a very limited education and background, I think. You need to move into the broader humanities in order to become a total person. But I loved him very much.

[Q] Playboy: Was he the one you loved most?

[A] Murray: I think so. He's a damned Dago. That's a term of affection.

[Q] Playboy: Of the men you've had affairs with, how many others were foreigners?

[A] Murray: None of them. But they were of different extractions. This particular guy was of Italian parentage; another had English blood; one was a real upper-class Bostonian; one had a Russian background, and one was Irish; he was the one that was best in bed. Did you know that we ladies have bull sessions like this among ourselves, and we talk about which of you fellows are good stud service and which ones aren't? If you boys knew what you sound like when you and your bedroom manners are dissected by a bunch of WACs, it would curl your hair, because we talk about exactly the same things you do among yourselves--and just as graphically.

[Q] Playboy: You served as a WAC in Italy and North Africa during World War Two, didn't you?

[A] Murray: Yes, and we were outnumbered by men five hundred to one, so you can see why we were preoccupied with sex. There was a good deal of everything going on--fornication, masturbation, homosexuality, promiscuity, you name it. We were near the front lines, and there was a gluttonous feeling of "eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die" in the air; it was kind of a last-gasp clutching at straws, at almost anything to relieve the strain.

[Q] Playboy: Did you participate?

[A] Murray: No, I was still pretty much of a puritan when I got into the Army, believe it or not, and when I saw these girls shacking up every night with a different GI, I thought, "How horrible. They're nothing but prostitutes." And I wouldn't even talk to them. But I began to get a lot more tolerant and understanding after a few months, and pretty soon I started an affair myself, and I slept with this one guy the whole time I was in the Army; nobody else. I've never been a one-night-stander. Say, I wonder why I'm telling you all this. I know I'm being indiscreet, because this kind of thing could be used against me nationwide; it'll just add fuel to the fire, which is already hot enough for me. But you know something? It just so happens that I don't give a damn. I'm going to be damned anyway. If they haven't destroyed me yet, I'd say I'm indestructible.

[A] Five years ago, before I opened Pandora's box by starting the school-prayer case, I was doing all right financially; I had my health, a good job, a nice brick Colonial home, beautiful furniture, three cars; we were a happy, close-knit, well-adjusted family. Well, brother, look at me now, as the saying goes: Here I am in a termite-ridden bungalow in Hawaii; my savings are gone; my job is gone; my health is gone--thanks to the beating I got in Baltimore, which has lost me almost all the use of two fingers in my right hand. I'm bothered by a continuous low-grade pain in that same hand and arm, which distracts me from my work and keeps me awake nights. My Baltimore home is in jeopardy; I may lose it. I've lost my furniture and my cars. My brother can't find a job, though he's been looking for work ever since we arrived here; so he's just a nice, educated bum at this point. I've lost my father by a heart attack, and my son Bill has broken down emotionally to the extent that he's under psychiatric care. My aged mother is with me, and she can't even be buried next to Dad, whose grave is back in Baltimore. And my son and I are living under the Damoclean sword of imminent extradition back to Maryland, where we are certain to be convicted and sentenced to several years in the state penitentiary for assault--a crime which we not only didn't commit, but which was perpetrated against us. So my life and the life of my family has been completely disrupted in absolutely every way. But it's been worth it. It's uncovered a vast cesspool of illegitimate economic and political power in which the Church is immersed right up to its ears, and I intend to dive in headfirst and pull it out of there dripping wet for all the world to see--no matter how long it takes, no matter whose feet get stepped on in the process, no matter how much it costs, no matter how great the personal sacrifice.

[Q] Playboy: It sounds as if you intend to make this cause your raison d'être.

[A] Murray: No, this crusade to separate church and state is only one expression of my raison d'être. I'm an atheist, but I'm also an anarchist, and a feminist, and an integrationist, and an internationalist--and all the other "ists" that people seem to find so horrible these days. I embrace all of them.

[A] Long ago, when I was a very young girl, I said that I wanted to go everywhere, see everything, taste everything, hear everything, touch everything, try everything before I died. Well, I've been a model, I've been a waitress, I've been a hairdresser, I've been a stenographer, I've been a lawyer, I've been an aerodynamics engineer, I've been a social worker, I've been an advertising manager, I've been a WAC. There isn't anything you can name that a woman can do that I haven't done. Before they put me under, I'm going to get involved in everything there is to get involved in. That's what I want from life. I don't intend to stand by and be a spectator. I want to be right in there in the midst of it, right up to my nose--totally involved in the community, in the world, in the stream of history, in the human image. I want to drink life to the dregs, to enlarge myself to the absolute limits of my being--and to strive for a society in which everyone--regardless of race, creed, color and especially religious conviction--has the same exhilarating raison d'être, and the same opportunity to fulfill it. In other words, to paraphrase Jack Kennedy and John Paul Jones, from this day forward, let the word go forth, to friend and foe alike: I have not yet begun to fight.