Clinton: I want to hear what you have to say, I've got friends who are dying of AIDS.

Rafsky: Bill, we're not dying of AIDS as much as we are dying of government neglect.

Clinton: Would you just calm down?

Rafsky: I can't clam down. I'm dying of AIDS while you're just dying of ambition.

After the speech, Clinton moved into the audience to shake Rafsky's hand. As television cameras rolled, Rafsky refused.

Later, in an open letter to Clinton published in Queer World, Rafsky acknowledged that his behavior at the fundraiser involved play-acting--but explained that he felt it was necessary.

"Taking time to imagine the life of a person with AIDS may seem self-indulgent to you," he wrote. "If you don't, though, how will you ever be able to trust your instincts?...Giving speeches that AIDS activists help write and espousing their demands is fine, but rhetoric and vague feelings of sympathy won't be of much use to you in the crucible of making hard decisions."

I'm always nervous about making too much of stories like Rafsky's. Maybe it's because he contracted AIDS through behavior I consider careless and immoral. Or maybe it's because his group, ACT-UP, uses questionable tactics to secure something I oppose--increased funding for AIDS research and treatment.

But sometimes confrontation is necessary. Rafsky realized that. And whether you agree with his specific goals or not, there's a lesson to be learned from both his life and his commitment to the cause.

Rafsky didn't demand more than be deserved. He just wanted someone--anyone--to give the scientific community and the government a kick in the pants. His protests weren't just about AIDS. They were about making the people who call themselves leaders and scientists in this country realize that when you have an epidemic, you don't build consensus--you act boldly and quickly.

Yung-Kang Chow's discovery might have pleased a dying man. But nothing short of a full-fledged cure could have satisfied him.