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Learn about opportunities to be a Long-Term Foster Parent, a Companion, or a Respite Care provider iworkshops Beginning in Fall and Wintermé We weicome your inquiries! For information can Gay Palazzo, 800607-1400 160 Palmer Court. White River Junction, VT 60 South Main Street, Waterbury, VT www.GayAdventureTravel.com ALYSON ADVENTURES is: * ow! Talk about mak- ing a big splash. ‘ A company linked to a previously-obscure Canadian religious sect stunned , the world two days after Christmas when it announced that an American woman gave birth to a seven-pound baby girl cloned from the woman’s DNA. If that wasn’t enough of a shocker, Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, CEO of Clonaid, Ltd., also announced that a second cloned baby girl was born three days into the new year to a Dutch woman and her lesbian partner at an undisclosed location in the Netherlands. And more cloned babies are coming, according to Dr. Boisselier. A gay-male couple hopes to have a cloned infant by next fall and plans are in the works to clone babies from HIV- positive people. Think about that. Babies created by taking DNA from the skin cells of their parents. No father’s sperm needed to fertilize the mother’s egg anymore. Was it a mere coincidence that the first cloned infant — if it really is a clone — was born on the day alter Christmas? As this edition of Out in the Mountains went to press, nei- ther physical proof of the two births, nor evidence that the infants were in fact cloned from their mothers’ DNA was offered, nor is such evidence forthcoming anytime soon. And the mothers’ identities are also being kept under wraps. Clonaid’s dramatic announcement of the birth of cloned human babies has not only poured gasoline on a long- simmering controversy over cloning, but also touched off a separate firestonn that could rock religion and spirituality to its very foundations. These alleged pioneers of human cloning are members of the Raelian Movement, a Quebec religious sect based near Montreal that believes that the human race itself was cloned by extraterrestrials. Dr. Boisselier is a Raelian bishop. Needless to say, Clonaid and the Raelians have incurred the blistering wrath of religious leaders across the spiritual spec- trum and of government leaders who have vowed to outlaw all human cloning. Until last Christmas, you probably had never even heard of the Raelians (pro- nounced RYE-ely-ens). Most Americans haven’t. In fact, most Canadians outside Quebec hadn’t heard of them either. That’s partly because most members of this predomi- nantly French-speaking sect, which claims 35,000 to 50,000 A {er Friendly uI=o Sect in Cloning Storm members worldwide, have for years lived quietly under the media radar. And for good reason. The Raelians are a very offbeat sect — and that’s putting it mildly. Some would say that the Raelians are eccentric “space cadets.” Others would say they’re just plain freaky — in the old 1960s countercultural sense of the term. So just who are the Raelians? And why have they kept such a low profile until now? For starters, the Raelians openly promote free- dom of sexual expression, a stance reminiscent of San Francisco’s Sexual Freedom League in the tie-dye-and-love beaded “flower power” era of the late 1960s. A But unlike the old SLF, which predated Stonewall and whose members nonetheless still blanched at the thought of same- gender -sex, the Raelians are more queer-friendly — much more. They’re a longtime fix- ture at Montreal’s annual Divers/cite gay-pride celebra- tions. And it’s not unusual in Montreal to encounter members of the sect — both men and women — who are openly ' bisexual. Thomas Kaenzig, a Raelian priest who is also vice president of Clonaid, said that one of the core values of the Raelian Movement is freedom in all aspects of life, including sex- ual freedom. “We encourage people to fully express their sex- uality, whether they are homo- sexual, bisexual or heterosexual without any feeling of guilti- ness,” he told The Washington Blade. Yet for all of their open- ness about human sexuality, the Raelians’ beliefs are not for ' everyone. To my knowledge, they are the first group to turn belief in UFOs and extraterrestri- - als into a religion. Actually, “religion” isn’t the rightlword. For religion, as generally understood today, contains two essential elements: 1) spirituality — belief in a world ‘V beyond the physical and 2) belief in a Source of all life, what most people call God. Neither exists for the Raelians. . engineering. The sect’s founder and leader, Claude Vorilhon — who has gone by the name Rael for nearly 30 years — has written numerous books in which he - says that life on Earth was creat. ed not by God but by a race of extraterrestrials through genetic , This race of ETs, according to Rael, are called the Elohim, a Hebrew name meaning “those who came from the sky.” - Rael says that the name, which appears in the Bible, was misin- terpreted to mean “God” (a point hotly disputed by biblical scholars). * Rael founded Clonaid in 1997, following the birth of Dolly the cloned sheep, and appointed Dr. Boisselier CEO of the company in 2000. The _ Raelians also own and operate a Clonaid’:- dramatic announcement has touched off a firestorm that "could rock religion and spirituality to their very foundations. theme park called “UFO Land” , in Valcourt, Quebec, about 70 miles southeast of Montreal. , By its own admission, ‘ Raelianism is.an “atheistic reli- gion.” Indeed, it is anti-theistic. It does not believe in the _ “supreme being” concept of God. It categorically rejects any and all spirituality, metaphysics and psychic phenomena. It does not believe in any existence beyond the physical; once you die, that’S it. PFFFT!'Nothing. No afterlife. The End. j Hence the sect’s foray ‘ into human cloning. Rael believes that through cloning, humans can liveforever cloning an adult person, acceler- ating the clone’s growth, and transferringthe person’s méhnorl and personality into the new‘Iy- cloned body. 7 4 A j ' ll ‘ ‘ Raelianism is highly critical of the orgahized 're'li_'g::l0'J-‘ establishment, paiticularlytlifi Roman Catholic Churchfjlfléafll all first-generation Raeliaiisf including the’56-year-old,’ French-bom Rael: himself, afe former Catholics; so their crltl' cism of the church should, not be surprising (I can i ’>>