Funeral Director Calls Activists’ Attack Against His AIDS Policy Unjust : Health: Jim Mumaw said state officials had assured him that his actions, based on a fear of becoming accidentally infected, were legal.

Jim Mumaw, a fourth-generation funeral director here, believes AIDS activists are unjustly attacking his business because he refuses to handle bodies infected with the virus.

The Catalyst Foundation for AIDS Awareness and Care singled out the Mumaw Funeral Home during a news conference last week, announcing that it had filed complaints with state and federal officials.

Mumaw, 38, said Friday that state funeral regulators had assured him that his actions, based on a fear of becoming accidentally infected, were legal.

By calling attention to his policy, Catalyst’s founder, physician Susan E. Lawrence, was carrying out an earlier vow “to destroy my reputation and see that my license was taken away,” Mumaw asserted. “I took that as a threat.”

The funeral director, a single father raising two young children, said his policy was a personal decision and did not deserve a harsh public scolding.

“If your opinion differs from another person’s, why destroy that person’s right to make a living for his children?” Mumaw asked. “Why dictate what risks a person has to take?”

But Lawrence, whose husband died of AIDS-related illnesses in July, insisted Friday that a larger issue is at stake. “If everyone has the freedom to discriminate,” she asked, “what would happen if it was carried to the extreme--and nobody wanted to take care of people with AIDS?”

Mumaw said he has called the state Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers on several occasions regarding his policy. He said Friday he could not remember the name of the staff member who told him last month that his policy was legal.

Administrators of the state board were unavailable for comment Friday. But in an interview earlier this week, Neil Fippen, the interim executive officer, said: “I’m not aware of any portion of the state funeral board law which covers this situation . . . We’ve just never dealt with it, quite frankly.”

But because of the complaint against Mumaw, Fippen said the board’s attorneys would try to determine whether the Lancaster businessman broke any other state or federal laws.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating a handful of funeral homes that have turned away AIDS cases or imposed surcharges for handling them. An agency spokesman said such practices violate the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which forbids discrimination against people with AIDS, their families and close associates.

Mumaw said he was not familiar with this law and does not belong to the National Funeral Directors Assn., which has told its members about it.

Late this week, Mumaw contacted the Justice Department to learn more about the federal anti-discrimination law. “Judging from the state, I thought I was on solid ground,” he said. “If the law says I have to (accept AIDS deaths), I have no choice but to obey the law, regardless of my opinion.”

He faulted state officials for not adequately addressing the issue. “They need a law that’s simple and clear that we can go by,” Mumaw said.

The lifelong Lancaster resident works out of the same downtown funeral parlor that his family opened in 1913. “I grew up in the business, just like my dad did before me,” he said.

After a divorce six years ago, Mumaw fought for and won custody of his children, Katrina, now 10, and Nick, 8. Citing his concerns for their welfare, Mumaw said he refers customers to other mortuaries when a death involves not only AIDS but other contagious and deadly diseases, such as hepatitis.

“I perceived the risk to be too great to take, with the consequences of leaving my children parentless,” he said.

Federal law requires mortuary workers to follow precautions--such as wearing gloves, gowns and masks--in handling all bodies because they may not know when a contagious disease is present.

Mumaw says such precautions “lessen the risk, but nothing is foolproof.”

Lawrence, the Lancaster AIDS activist, said she learned of Mumaw’s policy when he declined to attend a local AIDS seminar for mortuary workers. She said no other funeral director in the Antelope Valley shares Mumaw’s position.

Lawrence said she was determined to challenge the policy because she had encountered AIDS discrimination while seeking treatment for her husband.

She confirmed that she told Mumaw she would file a complaint that could affect his license. “What I said could have been perceived as threatening,” Lawrence said. “I would have been scared if someone had threatened to report me to the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Since Lawrence publicized her complaint, Mumaw says he has received a flood of telephone calls.

“Even people who didn’t agree with me didn’t like the way she was going about it,” the funeral director said. “Then there were some people who agreed with me. I didn’t find anybody who says I deserved what I got.”