Emperor Has No Clothes Award

An award celebrating “plain speaking” on the shortcomings of religion by public figures was inaugurated by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in 1999.

Anne Gaylor - 2004

Anne Nicol Gaylor, the principal founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and president from 1978-2004, was given a surprise Emperor Has No Clothes Award on October 29, 2004, at the end of a tribute the year she formally stepped down as president. In her years of outspoken feminist and freethought activism, where her common-sense pronouncements on the harm of religion turned her into a media lightning rod, nobody better embodies the child in the fairy tale who "tells it like it is." Read on for tributes:

Anne's Tribute

View a slideshow of Anne's fascinating career of activism, with personal photographs and media coverage

Anne Gaylor--Mentor and Friend, by Anne Treseder

Tributes to Anne Nicol Gaylor by Ken Taubert & Catherine Fahringer

Tribute from Prof. Michael Hakeem

Tributes from Marjorie & Philip Appleman, & from Alice Cleveland Shiver

Tribute from Ian Gaylor

Two Toasts to Anne Gaylor, by Constance Fuller Threinen

Photo by Brent Nicastro.

Recipients of the Emperor Has No Clothes Award: