Gigi Cervantes

Gigi Cervantes, who’ll be receiving FFRF’s Civil Rights Heroine Award, was a high school theatre and acting teacher at a fine arts charter school, who left her position in protest of the Texas Ten Commandments Statute SB 10. Gigi is a professional actor who has performed for 40+ years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as well as regionally at the Cleveland Playhouse, Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She also has over 20 years of experience as an acting teacher and has taught classes, camps and workshops at multiple DFW theatre companies. Gigi is also an accomplished singer-songwriter, avid Dallas Cowboys fan, and dog lover who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband Chris, who is a painter, musician, attorney and constitutional law professor, and their two dogs, Donny Osmond and Bill Murray (Donny & Murray).

Johnny Cotton

Percival Everett

Percival Everett, 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. His latest novel, “James,” was published in March 2024 to great critical acclaim, winning both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His other titles include “Dr. No” (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award”), “The Trees” (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), “Telephone” (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), “So Much Blue,” “Erasure” and “I Am Not Sidney Poitier.” He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel “Erasure,” was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Peter Isley

Peter Isely, who is receiving FFRF’s Clarence Darrow Award and statuette, is a survivor of childhood sexual assault and abuse by a Roman Catholic priest. He is a co-founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and has spent decades working with survivors, journalists, prosecutors, and human rights advocates to expose clerical abuse and institutional cover-ups, and to press for permanent removal of abusers and the officials who protected them. He lives in Milwaukee.

Drew McCoy

Drew McCoy is the creator of the Genetically Modified Skeptic YouTube channel, with over 850,000 subscribers. On his channel, you can learn “How to Go to Hell in Every Religion,” why the religious right benefits from debating atheists regardless of who “wins,” and much more. 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 8 years.

Jim Obergefell 

FFRF’s 2026 Forward Award and statuette will go to Jim Obergell, of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that resulted in victory for marriage equality. With Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Debbie Cenziper, Jim co-authored the book “Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality.” He’s an executive producer on the multi-media “JustMarried” project to save and share the stories of couples, activists, and allies who helped make marriage equality a reality legally, legislatively, and culturally over the span of seven decades and a dedicated civil rights activist.

Jennifer Welch

FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Awardee will be Jennifer Welch, open atheist and co-creator and co-host of the hit podcast “I’ve Had It,” a podcast now reaching over 3 million listeners a month. Its YouTube channel generates 150 million+ monthly views. Since launching the show in 2022 with Angie “Pumps” Sullivan, Welch has helped build a franchise that consistently ranks among Apple’s top Society & Culture podcasts. Welch has interviewed guests ranging from President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris to comedians Nikki Glaser and Billy Eichner and drag icons Trixie Mattel and Katya. Journalist Mehdi Hasan recently described her as “perhaps the most influential woman in the Democratic Party right now.” Welch also co-hosts the daily news series IHIP News and is the co-author of “Life Is a Lazy Susan of Sh*t Sandwiches.”

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