Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 15:38:13 -0700 From: Mills Mike Gay Rights Group Act Up Protest at Event for U.S. Senate Candidate Santorum By Peter Landry and Sergio R. Bustos, Philadelphia Inquirer PHILADELPHIA--Oct. 4--Activists from the Philadelphia chapter of Act Up lay down in the street outside a fund-raising event for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rick Santorum Monday night to protest his lack of support of legislation advancing gay and lesbian rights. A half-dozen GOP senators from across the country attended the event at the Hotel Atop the Bellevue, scene of a violent clash three years ago between police and Act Up protesters opposing the AIDS policy of then-President George Bush. Supporters said the event brought in an estimated $300,000 for Santorum's campaign. Act Up, the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, began organizing late last week to "crash the fund-raiser" by distributing fliers under the heading "Evil Jerks Coming to Philadelphia." The group is known for its confrontational style in advocating gay rights. The demonstrators gathered in front of the hotel around 6 p.m., loudly protesting in front of each entrance. They joined in a chorus of "Rick San tor-um Go A-way! Ra-cist, Sex-ist, Anti-Gay!" At one point, Joshua Lesser, 25, an Act Up member, dressed to look like Santorum while demonstrators tossed photocopied dollar bills at him. "We're trying to show how Santorum chases after money - like these $1,000-a-plate fund-raisers - and ignores the real issues like health care and AIDS," Lesser said. Afterward, several Act Up demonstrators lay down at Broad and Walnut Streets and blocked traffic for about 20 minutes. Police diverted traffic onto other streets and made no arrests. By 7:30 p.m., the peaceful but boisterous demonstrators left. Late voting in the U.S. House and Senate delayed the arrival of many of the guests, who included Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senate Minority Whip Alan Simpson and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter. "We see this as a very good prospect for a win," Simpson said in a speech at the event. "We really feel there is something in the air and we are going to win the U.S. Senate." Mike Michalke, Santorum's press spokesman, seemed unfazed by the approximately 400 Act Up members and by a separate group of union carpenters supporting Democratic Sen. Harris Wofford. "They're entitled to come out and demonstrate as they please, but most of the comments I have gotten are, we must be doing something right if they're protesting," he said. Santorum, a two-term congressman from Pittsburgh, got a zero rating in the 1993-'94 Congress from the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the country's largest lesbian-gay political organization. In the same period, Wofford received an 80 percent rating from the group on comparable bills in the Senate. The Human Rights Campaign Fund rated House and Senate members on the basis of five gay-rights or anti-discrimination votes, including gays in the military and a domestic-partner measure in the District of Columbia. Wofford was marked down for voting against an amendment to prevent the codification of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on homosexuals in the military, Campaign Fund spokesman Doug Hattaway said. Wofford supported the final version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Philadelphia Act Up spokesman Paul Davis said Monday that gay activists, plus labor and abortion-rights people, had targeted the $1,000-a-head GOP event because of the "far-right politicians" Santorum had invited to host it. "Harris Wofford isn't anybody's best friend in the world," Davis said, "but this is a situation where you have to vote against the greater of the two evils." In September 1991, Philadelphia Act Up was involved in a violent conflict with Philadelphia police in an AIDS protest during a visit by Bush. An independent advisory panel later was highly critical of police. Wofford, who was in Philadelphia to accept the anti-crime endorsement of a victim's rights group, would not comment yesterday on Act Up's protest against his opponent and was reluctant to discuss their differences on gay- rights legislation. Wofford said he "voted for the final settlement that was made regarding discrimination in the military because so much had gone into the effort to getting compromise." Santorum, too, claims support on the crime issue. He has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, the Philadelphia Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police and the state Fraternal Order of Police.