Roy Torcaso, 96; Defeated Md. in 1961 Religious Freedom Case

He served in the Army in England during World War II. Reactivated during the Korean conflict, he learned Korean at the Army's language school and worked as an interpreter during prison interrogations.

After his U.S. Supreme Court victory, Mr. Torcaso held a series of bookkeeping jobs over the decades, none lasting very long. His daughter Linda Bernstein attributed this to her father's strong personality. She said her father was "opinionated" and "sort of difficult, very firm in his beliefs, or nonbeliefs."

He was an early voice in favor of racially integrating his Wheaton neighborhood. He later organized pickets against the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority political organization and attended marches in favor of abortion rights.

He was a former board member of the American Humanist Association, an educational and philosophical group, and a former president of its Washington chapter.

He became a humanist counselor, with the authority to officiate at weddings in some states. In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his challenge to Virginia laws that favored ordained ministers and prevented him from officiating at weddings there.

He also was a former Washington area president of the Hemlock Society, a right-to-die organization, and often brought the terminally ill some of his award-winning dahlias.

While he remained an atheist, he was a member of Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville. He joined about 1960 because of the Rockville church's outspoken support for his lawsuit against Maryland's constitution when he said others were calling him a "dirty Communist" and "atheistic bum."

His wife of 60 years, Eileen Lusher Torcaso, died in 2006. A daughter, Susan Mims, died in 2002.

Besides his daughter, of Philadelphia, survivors include a son, Bill Torcaso of Cambridge, Mass.; a brother; three grandsons; and two great-grandsons.