Reserve hotel rooms before they're gone

You aren't going to want to miss out on FFRF's 40th annual convention the weekend of Sept. 15-17 at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison, Wis., featuring amazing guest speakers and performers, including comedian Paula Poundstone, writer Katha Pollitt, activist Maryam Namazie, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker and many more!

But don't delay in reserving your hotel rooms or they might be gone! FFRF offers convention blocks at three hotels this year to accommodate more registrants! (See below for more hotel information, or go to ffrf.org/outreach/convention.)

Take a tour of Freethought Hall during its open house on Friday, Sept. 15, from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Complimentary refreshments will be served.

FFRF convention attendeees are invited to take a boat cruise on Madison's Lake Monona Friday, Sept. 15, from 10:45 a.m. to 1 p.m., prior to the start of the convention. For $50 per person, you'll be treated to a two-hour tour with a buffet and a cash bar for beverages. And for dinner on Friday, join us for the Wisconsin Tailgate Party buffet, which will feature the Forward! Marching Band.

Here are the confirmed speakers/entertainers:

Paula Poundstone

Poundstone is one of America's top comedians and is listed in Comedy Central's list of "100 Greatest Stand-Ups Of All Time" and also won an American Comedy Award for Best Female Standup Comic. She routinely identifies as an atheist in her performances.

Katha Pollitt

Pollitt is well known for her column that runs in The Nation, "Subject to Debate," which the Washington Post called "the best place to go for original thinking on the left." She will be receiving FFRF's Forward Award at the convention.

Kimberly Veal

Veal is president of People of Color Beyond Faith, president and host of the Black FreeThinkers Radio Network, IT trainer and community and social justice activist.

Maryam Namazie

Namazie is an Iranian-born secularist and human rights activist, commentator and broadcaster living in London. She will be receiving the 2017 Henry H. Zumach Freedom From Fundamentalist Religion Award.

Steven Pinker

Harvard's Pinker is FFRF's honorary president, a cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is one of the world's foremost writers on language, mind and human nature. He is Harvard's Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology.

Cara Santa Maria

Santa Maria is a Los Angeles-area Emmy and Knight Foundation Award-winning journalist, science communicator and host of the weekly science podcast, "Talk Nerdy with Cara Santa Maria." She'll receive FFRF's Freethought Heroine Award.

Michelle Goldberg

Goldberg is an author and columnist for Slate and frequent MSNBC commentator on the Religious Right. Goldberg's first book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, was a finalist for the 2007 New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Brent Michael Davids

Davids is an American composer and flautist and is a member of the Stockbridge Mohican nation of American Indians. He has composed for Zeitgeist, Kronos Quartet, Joffrey Ballet, the National Symphony Orchestra and Chanticleer.

Roy Zimmerman

Zimmerman is an American satirical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a repertoire of irreverent songs. He wrote a series of satirical musical revues in the 1980s.

Zenos Frudakis

Frudakis, of Philadelphia, is an award-winning sculptor of public monuments, portrait statues, busts and figurative sculptures, including his new statue of Clarence Darrow.

Kelly Helton

Helton, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Kentucky, will give a short talk about her activism, including sitting down for the Pledge of Allegiance.

A roster of victorious state/church plaintiffs, who will be named Freethinkers of the Year, include Marie Schaub, Jesse Castillo and Kevin Price, and Jerry Bloom. FFRF staff attorneys will also give a legal presentation.

Hotel info

Hilton Madison Monona Terrace, 9 E. Wilson Street, is the official convention hotel and connects to Monona Terrace. Call 608-255-5100 to make a reservation for the "Freedom From Religion Foundation" group rate. The group rate cut-off date is Aug. 16.

Best Western Premier Park Hotel, 22 S. Carroll Street, is right on the Capitol Square, just 0.3 miles from Monona Terrace. Call 800-279-8811 or 608-285-8000 to reserve rooms in the "Freedom From Religion Foundation" block. The group rate reservation cut-off is Aug. 14.

Sheraton Madison Hotel, 706 John Nolen Drive, is 2 miles away from Monona Terrace, with shuttle service available. Call 608-251-2300 or 866-716-8134 (toll-free) to reserve a room. The group rate cut-off date is Aug. 15.

For specific information about the convention, including the registration form, go to ffrf.org/convention2017.

Ed Sweeney Upper Arlington, Ohio, City Council May 8, 2017

FFRF Member Ed Sweeney gave the following secular invocation that he said was met with kind words from citizens, city staff and council members, including Council President and Mayor Deborah Johnson. Sweeney said he would like to give credit to state Rep. Juan Mendez, who gave a similar invocation on May 13, 2013, before a session of the Arizona House of Representatives.

"When I finished, the mayor said, 'Awesome,' " Sweeney wrote.

Johnson also wrote a note to Sweeney, which said: "Thank you very much for taking the time to come to our City Council meeting. City Council and staff appreciate you delivering the invocation on May 8, 2017. We value your message and words of wisdom."

Sweeney now says he hopes to get the council to stop having any invocations before meetings.

Most invocations in this room begin with a request to bow your heads. Tonight, I ask that you not bow your heads. Instead, I ask that we take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here. Let's share together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people of Upper Arlington.

This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension and frustration. But this is also a room where, as my secular humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, compassion, fear, joy and love.

In this room, let us cherish and celebrate our shared humanness and capacity for reason. Let us celebrate our compassion for the people of our City; the love for our Constitution and our democracy.

Reason has the power to solve even the most challenging problems, while cultivating intelligent, moral and ethical interactions among people of varying backgrounds and beliefs or non-beliefs.

In gratitude and in love let us work together for a better city.

Here is your June/July installment of some of the correspondence FFRF receives on the negative end of the spectrum. These come to you as received, unedited.

Leave school kids alone: I am so sick of you and your group going after school kids who have beliefs. You just can't stand the fact that maybe they possess enlightenment that you cannot understand. Leave school children alone. The ones who believe in God are not the ones shooting up the school, causing problems in school or trying to treat others like their are stupid, if they don't believe. Like you do. — Brenda A.

Who you are: Please explain to me who you think you are, from what I gather you are people of fear.Bitching and complaining about The Ten Commandments and bible verses on Police cars is not something for your kind to fear or anyone else to fear. Displays of these things do not promote a religion. You are promoting hate, and violence towards those who believe in something. Your organization needs to rethink its stand and back off. If you dont like something dont look at it but dont be afraid of words.... What are you people thinking????????????????? — Mel M.

Why: Who are you to go and bully people and tell them what they can and cannot put on their police vehicles and things?!? Leave us Christians alone. We will stand up for what is right and living for Jesus Christ is right and always will be right. What we do down here in the state of Virginia is none of your concern!! You stay in your state wit h your false gods and we'll stay here in Virginia with our ONE TRUE GOD!! Too bad the question about how people learn about FFRF doesn't have because y'all are idiots because I sure would have checked that one!! – Karen K.

Satan: Don't they the right to do stuff just like you and your "kind"???? Don't you see how foolish you are????? — JP P.

I'm Catholic: Bite me. — John B.

idiots: If someone does something that you disapprove, it is not a violation of rights. The only ones that violate a persons righys are you because of your hatred of religious. Why don't you grow up and go away — Edward J. B.

Papal audience: Find something to believe in and live for that is a positive.instead of bewailing and spending time over Some one you believe doesn't exist!!! Ever hear of paschals wager? Please check it out! — Donna D.

Sick of liars: You people are such huge liars that you are sick. What small minded and dishonest bigots you are. AND..... you are ANTI-American and ANTI-constitutional. You are just atheistic ISIS. You want people forced to believe what you think. — Philip C.

Vatican visit: Guess you folks don't have a clear understanding of the Constitution in regard to religion. — Catherine G.

Crossing the line: Remember, what goes around comes around and Karma dictates that it will soon be your turn in the barrel. If you don't fear bad Karma then you are dumber than a rock. — Frank P.

Get over yourselves: God and the Pop are more important and so far above you it's beyond belief. — Paul K.

God bless cops: Next time you fuckers need a cop,I hope he doesn't show...Your all a piece of Shit.God Bless America and cops...Go fuck yourself — Robert M.

John: You guys say that you are athiests but then give support to satanic groups becouse of there actions against christianity. You guys are hypocrites. They are alsoa religious group becouse they praise christians Num 1 enemy, lucifer. your propagabda is so sad. the things you write are so subjective. there si no autonomy and you are mostly against christians then other religions. What about hinduisim, the jewish religion, budisim etc. — John P.

Why?: If you don't believe in God (which we know that is not true because the Bible makes explicitly clear that every person believes in God, Romans 1) but since you like to pretend you don't believe. Why would you be committed to stopping religion. If its not true then why bother. The very fact that you fight against religion is evidence of your belief. You know the God of the Holy Bible is real. Please repent of your sin and turn to Jesus Christ. — Daniel V.

It's real: HELL exists and is filled with atheists!!!!! — Debbie C.

ISIS Decapitation: My prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ is for Him to get His to commission ISIS to go to Madison Wisconsin and behead leaders of the FFRF and their patsy attorneys. — Sal B.

You: You people had better mind you own business. Atheism is not a religion. The Presidents order is for religious groups who are tax exempt. If your looking for trouble it will find you. — Dan T.

First Amendment: It is amazing how many people do not understand the 1st Amendment, or reinterpret it, for their own purposes. Such is the case with your organization and followers. The 1st Amendment's language is very clear and simple to understand and comply with. Our Founding Fathers used those particular words so that even the poorly uneducated could fully understand the meaning of the 1st freedoms. It is really a shame you all don't get it!!!! I will never trust men to rule over my conscious!! — Joe B.

Jesus is Lord!: I don't understand why your group hates our living creator and Lord, Jesus Christ. Why are you so hellbent on destroying our nation's Christian heritage? I think the American people spoke this last November when Donald J Trump was elected president. They are tired of folks like destroying America and persecuting Christians. With God's help and that of our new real President, God is coming back to America to reverse the damage of the militant secularists and homosexuals. I pray that you release Satin and come to God's grace and mercy. — James C.

YOU ARE IN ERROR: There are no contradictions within the Holy Bible. You err because you do not know the Scripture. — David M.

FFRF Member Douglas J. Brassil, 77, of Toledo, Ohio, died March 24, 2017, of acute lymphoma.

Doug retired from Libbey-Owens-Ford in Toledo and was a lifetime resident of Maumee and Toledo. He enjoyed attending local sports events, especially when nieces and nephews were playing. He had been a member of FFRF since 2004.

Doug left a bequest of $7,500 to FFRF from a life insurance policy.

"We're sorry to lose Doug, a longtime supporter, and touched and grateful he provided for FFRF's future," FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said.