Bob Rafsky; Helped Make AIDS Election Issue

Bob Rafsky, 47, the AIDS activist whose confrontation with President Clinton on the campaign trail last March helped secure the fatal disease’s position as a prime election issue. Rafsky, one of the members of the militant AIDS support group ACT UP, also was featured on “60 Minutes” in November. A graduate of Harvard University and a public relations executive, Rafsky came to terms with his homosexuality and was divorced in 1985. In 1987, he joined ACT UP, which was formed to stimulate public response to the AIDS crisis. After Rafsky disrupted a Clinton fund-raiser in New York City, the future President met with New York City AIDS activists who helped him draft an AIDS agenda for his Administration. In New York on Sunday of the complications of AIDS.