Sandy Rapp is an author, songwriter and activist who conducts gay sensitivity training for police departments and has recounted her battles with the religious right in her book God's Country: A Case Against Theocracy. Her articles have appeared in newspapers all over the US, including The New York Times, Newsday, New York Blade, Washington Blade, Outlook Long Island and Southern Voice.

Rapp’s new CD, Flag & The Rainbow, sings of civil rights, feminist festivals, and environmental disasters. As author Jack Nichols wrote in the Gay Today 6/16/03: The cyclical spirit of the 1960s lives in Sandy Rapp's songs. It is certainly the spirit of the Stonewall... evolving into anthems such as Sandy Rapp herself has composed." And Jim Fouratt wrote in New York's Gay City News 12/18–24/03: "Here we have Old School Women's music... A couple of generations of artists lived and breathed this tradition, but very few ever crossed over into big time success. [These] songs about reproductive rights, Stonewall, the environment, and even Bella Abzug, [represent] a lifetime of experiences that made possible being out, a woman, and a musician.”

Rapp's We The People CD, features a First Amendment tribute, “If The Truth Be Told,” about the Burning Times, when censorship rendered the whole Queer community completely invisible. And many of Rapp’s pieces touch on the centrality of free speech in the furtherance of civil rights and civil liberties.

Recent performance venues include National Women’s Music Festival, Gulf Coast Womyn’s Festival, National NOW rallies in DC, NYC, and Seneca Falls, the Gay Veterans' Memorial in Palm Springs, the Gay Millennium March on DC, Atlanta’s Existentialist Center, Manhattan’s Gay Center and People’s Voice Café, the 2003 National NOW Conference, and Autumnfest.

Rapp's books and CDs are available at Amazon.com and at SandyRapp.com. Contacts are 631-329-5193 & SandyRapp@aol.com.

All Rapp's presentations are musical and include original topical songs as well as question and answer sessions about the issues.

Topics:

• How censorship oppresses women, lesbians and gay men
• The dangerous alliance of feminist censors with right-wing conservatives
• The experiences of a rights activist