Huffman, Cohen add more sizzle to line-up!
U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman and author/blogger Kate Cohen have joined FFRF’s amazing line-up of speakers for its annual convention at Milwaukee’s Baird Convention Center in mid-October.
Register online now, or complete the form on the back page of this issue.
The formal conference encompasses more than two full days, Oct. 15–17, preceded by “early-bird workshops,” a complimentary reception and an opening-evening speech by Rep. Huffman on Thursday, Oct. 15. The convention is followed by the annual membership and state representatives meetings on Sunday morning, Oct. 18, ending by noon.
FFRF offers a discounted room block at the Hilton Milwaukee Hotel, 509 W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee of $229 plus taxes per night. Book your room online now or phone 800-774-1500 noting you’re with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and providing our group code “90N.”
Huffman, D-Calif., one of the founders of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, previously spoke at FFRF’s 2018 convention in San Francisco, where he accepted FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award. He also gave video remarks at FFRF’s 2022 convention. He’ll be speaking about his book, coming out in late August, called “No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism.”
Cohen has spoken at the FFRF conventions in 2023 (Madison, Wis.) and 2024 (Denver). At the 2023 convention, she won FFRF’s Freethought Heroine Award for, in part, writing the book, “We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (And Maybe You Should Too).”
Other previously announced speakers include novelist Percival Everett, author of the powerful book “James,” which won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and is a retelling of “Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of the enslaved James (not “Jim”). The distinguished professor of English at USC will receive FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award, reserved for public figures who make known their dissent from religion. “James” was published in March 2024 to great critical acclaim, and Everett will sign copies of his book. “American Fiction,” the feature film based on his novel “Erasure,” was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Jennifer Welch, an atheist who cohosts the “I’ve Had It” podcast, which reaches over 3 million listeners a month and has 150 million+ monthly views on its YouTube Channel, will speak on “I’ve had it with Christian nationalism.” Welch greets listeners to “I’ve Had It” as “Patriots, gaytriots, theytriots, Blacktriots and browntriots.” A New York Times interview noted that she became a “natural ally” with the marginalized after growing up an atheist. Welch also co-hosts the daily news series IHIP News and is the coauthor of “Life Is a Lazy Susan of Sh*t Sandwiches.” Welch will also receive FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award.
Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in Obergefell vs. Hodges — the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized marriage equality — and an atheist, will receive FFRF’s Forward Award and statuette reserved for individuals who have moved society forward. He’ll talk about the case and sign copies of his book, “Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality.”
Other honorees will include two Texas teachers of integrity, who quit their jobs rather than display Ten Commandments posters in their public school classrooms: Gigi Cervantes, a high school theatre and activating teacher in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Johnnie Cotton, a band leader and teacher for 42 years in the Carthage ISD. They will receive a “First Amendment Heroine” Award and “First Amendment Hero Award” respectively.
The Clarence Darrow Award and statuette will go to Milwaukee’s Peter Isley, a survivor of childhood sexual assault by a Roman Catholic priest who co-founded the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
The Henry Zumach Freedom From Fundamentalist Religion Award, now at $75,000, will go to the Secular Coalition for America’s Education Fund and be accepted by SCA Executive Director Steven Emmert. The Zumach Award has been solely endowed by a generous Wisconsin state/church activist to recognize and further the work of allies.
Maya Wiley will be presented with a “Champion of Civil Rights Award” for her work directing the Leadership Conference on Human Rights and Civil Rights, and will talk about current threats to civil rights and democracy.
Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, a union of 1.8 million individuals, will be speaking and signing copies of her new book, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers.” Prior to her election as AFT president in 2008, Weingarten served for 11 years as president of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2, worked as a lawyer on Wall Street and taught history at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn. Weingarten was included in Washingtonian’s 2022 Washington’s Most Influential People. Weingarten holds degrees from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Cardozo School of Law.
Other speakers will include Drew McCoy, creator of the “Genetically Modified Skeptic” YouTube channel, with over 850,000 subscribers. Drew was raised as an Independent Fundamental Baptist, but left religion in 2016 and has been a full-time atheist content creator and activist for the past eight years.
Forrest Valkai, a popular Oklahoma-based biologist, science educator and popular content creator known as the Renegade Science Teacher, will also speak.
FFRF is also proud to announce it will be bestowing the $5,000 Avijit Roy Courage Award, memorializing the slain Bangladeshi-American freethought author and activist, to Ibtissame (Betty) Lachgar, a Moroccan freethinker, feminist and civil libertarian who has been imprisoned for “insulting Islam.”
The conference will end with an after-dinner keynote address by Ron Reagan, known for his fearless political commentary, his independent views, as well as his generous TV commercial endorsement of FFRF — in which he describes himself as an “unabashed atheist . . . not afraid of burning in hell.”
FFRF will be offering “early-bird” workshops on Thursday afternoon, including the popular “Ask an Attorney” panel where FFRF legal eagles will take your questions on state/church issues and concerns, and an interactive panel to practice lobbying with Regional Governmental Affairs Manager Mickey Dollens, a seated state legislator in Oklahoma, and FFRF’s other legislative team members. In addition, leaders from FFRF’s grassroots chapter program will lead a workshop providing an overview of the benefits of starting an FFRF chapter in your area. That will be followed by a complimentary late afternoon reception, then Rep. Huffman’s evening address.
The annual conference will also include the usual executive, legal and legislative reports, student essay winners or activists, a chance to mingle at book and sales tables, the NonPrayer Breakfast, the drawing for “clean” (pre-”In God We Trust”) currency and several optional group meals and complimentary receptions.
