Michigan Humanists are pleased to announce the Freethinker of the Year for 2025. Each year the award is presented to a Michigan resident who makes significant contributions to advance the cause of secular humanism. This year the award is being presented to Marissa Postler at Michigan Humanists’ annual Solstice Dinner.
Marissa Postler is in her third four-year term on the Wyoming city council, where she serves as an open atheist. She first ran in 2016 when she was 23 years old and still a student. One of her major motivations was to be a role model for other young people to get them more involved in politics. She saw that most of the leadership was being done by older people. She replaced a 78 year old incumbent in the race, becoming the youngest council member in Wyoming’s history.
She also does a lot of community outreach, staying in touch with her constituents. She is very effective because she stays focused on the issues that matter to the residents of her city, building bridges to get things done. She strives to bring her constituents’ views forward and to ask the questions that the other representatives don’t think to address. As she says, “My non-religious worldview definitely allows me to zoom out and see a bigger world, where religious folks often falsely assume everyone in the community shares their beliefs and thus make decisions that alienate others.”
Marissa Postler has been an effective and inspiring representative for young people, and our entire secular humanist community.
