Badpuppy Gay Today

Thursday, 13 March, 1997

Dr. Ian Wilmut, the Scottish scientist who cloned Dolly, told a Senate Bio-Ethics Committee Wednesday that cloning research holds vast promises for medical research. In a passionate defense for such research, Wilmut explained how he hoped to gain an understanding of the way in which cells, the early embryo, differentiate to become an adult animal. If understanding that and understanding the way which, in his experiment and in others, "this process has been re-programmed, there's been a D differentiation, that will lead to new treatment for human diseases." The earnest scientist urged U.S. Senators not to ban such research, and said, to comfort the worried, that in his view, human cloning is not likely to become an immediate happening.

Meanwhile, although President Clinton recently barred federal funds that might be used in human embryo experiments, Senator Tom Harkin (Dem. Iowa) openly scorned the frenzied rush to impose research bans. He said the government should stay out of the clone research issue and that's its "just a matter of time" before human cloning takes place.

The New York Observer (March 17) has printed an informative portrait of Randolfe Wicker, a pioneering gay activist turned cloning advocate who says, according a quote in the Observer, that "when I saw the movie, Cheaper By The Dozen, I wanted to be Clifton Webb and have 12 kids."

CRUF, or Clone Rights United Front, which works to keep cloning legal, attempted to gain entrance to today's (Thursday's) New York hearings on proposed anti-cloning legislation. Wicker, CRUF's director, is already slated to defend his organization's Bill of Rights in top-name media slots, and called the denial of his vocal group's entry into the debate "a transparent sham where carefully controlled anti-cloning messages like Cardinal John J. O'Connor will be predominant."

The CRUF Director said members of his group have been denied citizen input after he was informed by Ms. Rachel Gordon that his dissent would not only not be tolerated but that the hearings were closed. Leafleters advised legislators to "Preserve Reproductive Rights." CRUF was rudely rebuffed, according to leafleters, and members threatened with arrest while being refused the right to testify. CRUF crusaders see cloning research as important, no matter sexual-orientations, their struggle demanding for an end to government interference on what citizens may do with the most personal possession they have, DNA.

"Those fighting for the public's right to know," said a CRUF leaflet, "are being shunted aside by modern day scientific luddites, homophobic religious zealots, and a chorus of tin pan alley politicians preening and catering to public fears and misunderstanding of this important issue." Clone Rights United Front can be reached at (212) 255-1439, Noon to 8.m.