Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Sunday, 13 October 1996.
Mike Householder, Associated Press Writer
Steven Hardway, of Oklahoma City, a member of the group ACT UP who threw an urn that he said bore the ashes of his lover who died of AIDS, was escorted from the scene, but the U.S. Park Police said he was not arrested or charged.
ACT UP characterized the demonstration as a political funeral to protest President Clinton's AIDS policies and to press demands including guaranteed access to anti-AIDS medications, more AIDS research and a federally funded needle exchange program for addicts.
Clinton, campaigning in the West, missed the protest. The White House had no comment. Spokesman Jim Fetig said he was unaware of the demonstration.
The group marched to a slow drumbeat from near the Capitol, beside the AIDS Quilt with names of victims of the disease laid out on the Mall and on to the White House.
There, some members placed pictures of dead friends and loved ones on the fence as others tossed in the funeral urns and shouted complaints against the Clinton administration over a bullhorns.
One demonstrator was Jeff Getty, a patient from Oakland, Calif., who had baboon bone marrow transplanted into his body last December in an experimental AIDS treatment.
"One less missile fired at Iraq could help reduce the size of the quilt," Getty said. "We have to fight the president to get these drugs paid for."
Clinton viewed the quilt Friday as volunteers laid it out along the Mall from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.
Kate Krauss, an ACT UP member from Philadelphia, said she considered his presence there a political act for his presidential campaign. "Once you're dead, you're not controversial anymore," she said.
ACT UP, which stands for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, claims chapters throughout the world including ones in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Paris.
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