This is the opinion of U.S. District Judge Jack Roberts in the Madalyn Murray O’Hair et al. v. Thomas O. Paine, et al. case.
In a nationally televised event on Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman read the first 10 verses from the book of Genesis in the Bible.
Feeling her First Amendment rights had been violated, American Atheists founder Madalyn Murray O’Hair filed suit against Thomas O. Paine, the administrator of NASA, and the space agency. O’Hair is best known for her role in Murray v. Curlett, that was consolidated with Abington School District v. Schempp, and led to the Supreme Court’s 1963 ruling that school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools was unconstitutional.
She believed that because the Apollo 8 crew read from the scripture, her rights were infringed upon as an atheist. O’Hair claimed that NASA, a federal agency, instructed the astronauts to read from the Bible and this was a direct violation of separation of church and state. She further alleged that NASA was trying to establish Christianity as the official religion of the United States. She said tax dollars should not be used to accommodate a Bible on board, and claimed the date of the Apollo 8 flight was chosen for religious reasons.
Judge Roberts dismissed the suit, writing that the complaint failed to state a cause of action for which relief could be granted. He argued that the plaintiffs were not coerced to watch the T.V. event; and, if the astronauts had been forced to read from the Bible, then the personal rights of the astronauts would have been violated, not those of the plaintiffs. Roberts stated carrying the Bible aboard neither advanced nor inhibited religion, and therefore did not violate the establishment clause. Roberts concluded that scheduling the Apollo 8 flight in the Christmas season was “approaching the absurd,” and “The First Amendment does not require the State to be hostile to religion, but only neutral.”
This document is featured in the primary source-based student workbook “Putting the Bill of Rights to the Test.”
