Freedom From Religion Foundation's 34th Annual Convention

Weekend of October 7-9, 2011
Marriott Hartford Downtown
200 Columbus Blvd
Hartford, Connecticut

The convention will open formally on Friday night with speeches and a celebratory des­­­­­­­­sert reception, continue through Saturday and conclude by noon Sunday morning after membership and Board of Director meetings. To tour the Twain house, plan your itinerary to make time on Friday afternoon.

Newest announced speakers:

Harvard's evolutionary biologist and bestselling author Steven Pinker, who will speak on Friday night. Pinker will be on hand to sign his newest book, out in time for the convention, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Declined. Pinker has previously won an Emperor Has No Clothes Award and is an honorary director of FFRF. Also just announced, Dylan Galos, a graduate student whose "I can be good without God" offering in FFRF's Out of the Closet billboard campaign in Columbus was censored twice before finding a safe home! Dylan will receive a $1,000 student activist award in the Saturday morning program.
Broadway composer Charles Strouse!! The man who wrote the music to the musicals Annie and Bye Bye Birdie and many other beloved songs will accept FFRF's "Emperor Has No Clothes" award. He is a life-long atheist who has not hesitated to "tell it like it is" regarding religion.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of 36 Arguments For the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, will be named Freethought Heroine 2011. Her speech is titled “36 (Bad) Arguments For the Existence of God.”
Professor Jerry Coyne will accept FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award at the convention. Coyne, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, is author of the 2009 book, Why Evolution is True. His plain-spoken column, “Science and religion aren’t friends,” appeared in USA Today in October 2010.
Joseph Taylor, (known as "Ojo" Taylor is a songwriter, pianist and producer for the top-of-the-charts Christian rock group Undercover. He is the founder and general manager of Brainstorm Artists International / Innocent Media, a production company and record label distributed by Sony Music and Word Records and distributed all over the world. Joe has produced albums for Grammy and Dove award-winning groups. Now a professor of music at James Madison University, Joe will talk about his deconversion from Christian entertainer to nonbelieving educator.
Also receiving awards will be two FFRF activists. Steve Trunk, an FFRF Board and Lifetime Member, will receive the Atheist in Foxhole Award as plaintiff in a lawsuit in which the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in January declared the Mount Soledad cross in San Diego unconstitutional.
Mitch Kahle, founder of Hawaii Citizens for the Separation of State and Church, will be named Freethinker of the Year for persuading the Hawaii Senate in January to drop prayers to open legislative sessions. Kahle, a longtime FFRF supporter, was roughed up by Senate security for protesting prayers.

To register: http://www.ffrf.org/outreach/convention/convention-registration/ .