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Pen Points
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Human Cloning: The Next New Religion?
Why not? We have Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism and Astrology.
I just had a chat with a newly homeless physic "healer" a few minutes ago. The world is full of mysticism and mystery. Why not add a new thread to the brilliant tapestry of life?
Besides, I am a classic example of someone who has had his life taken over by this issue. If I had 'just found Christ" (and all of us know a few of those folks) I couldn't be a more "one-track" minded person. So, if "cloning" is my "calling", why shouldn't I consider it a religion? Isn't it a belief system based on one's beliefs about life and death? Isn't cloning the "scientific pathway" to an afterlife? Isn't it scientific re-incarnation? Isn't re-incarnation a religious belief system? What should be the symbol for a Church of Cloning? An "infinity" symbol would be overstating the case. Perhaps, we should adopt the ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol for life. On the other hand, we could explore the imagery of doubles. There is the astrology symbol for Pieces and then again there is Ying and Yang. However, someone tells me, Ying and Yang are "polar opposites". It would, of course, be folly for us to embrace Narcissus. Too negative and that would be ammunition for our enemies. Oh well, we have not even landed on Planet Earth yet. We are still circling the world looking for that fertile mountain top on which to land, that fertile valley where we can plant our flag (what would that look like?)...stay tuned. Randolfe H. Wicker-Founder of Clone Rights United Front, the world's first pro-human cloning activist organization Frottage is Forbidden
Dear 365gay.com reader: I posted the message pasted in below in response to deletions by 365gay.com of my previous posts regarding anal, drugs, and safe alternatives. 365gay.com claimed that it deleted my posts because they had links -- heaven forfend!!! -- to other sites. As though the internet was not about links. I ask the readers of 365gay.com -- what alternative do I have? I'm a gay activist with a 30-year public and verifiable record of organizing and contributing to the gay community -- unlike 365gay.com, never for pay or profit. And always openly and under my own name -- which I can assure you 30 or even 20 years ago was not an invariably pleasant experience. I wonder if those making policy at 365gay.com can say the same? If 365gay.com allowed it, I could direct you to my website where you could read my biography and verify it for yourself. But 365gay.com, in its wisdom, won't let me give you the tools to do that. In 1997, I became concerned about the pressure and coercion in the gay male community to have anal sex, and the ways in which men who refused to have or disliked anal were being denigrated -- denigration within a community which is supposed to be built on sexual tolerance.
Those articles are still available on the web, but 365gay.com, with its all-encompassing knowledge of what's good and bad for the gay community, won't let me tell you where they can be found. My work, by the way, was published by some of the most distinquished editors in the gay press, including Toby Johnson, friend and student of the renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell, and Jack Nichols, who's in every history of gay rights because he's the guy who, in 1963, appealed to the Mattachine Society to oppose the medical model of homosexuality, and went on to become the editor of the first weekly national gay newsmagazine. But of course 365gay.com won't let you find out why these men, who together have more than 70 years of service to the gay community, thought my work was worth publishing. When I tried to move my ideas into larger gay venues however -- places like POZ, Advocate/PlanetOut.com or gay.com -- I ran into a wall. The gay press, which for years had flourished by encouraging discussion and dissent, had changed -- it was now obsessed with status and celebrity and maintaining the gay status quo. So, I did what everyone else in the frottage movement has been forced to do -- opened a website of my own -- so that those who wanted to understand my thinking would have a place to do so. For my ideas -- though not radical and well within the mainstream of academic thinking about culture and sexuality over the last twenty years -- are complex. They can't be neatly compressed into a message board. And I opened a site too because I wanted to provide a place for men who were not into anal to be free of the omnipresent cultural messages extolling anal, promiscuity, effeminacy and drugs. And I there presented to them my own view of an alternative to that very destructive anal culture, which I call Heroic Homosex -- an m2m culture built on equality, masculinity, and loyalty to the man you love. But 365gay.com's policy is to not let me tell you where that site can be found. And to not report on the social movement of which it is an outgrowth. And to not allow opinion pieces that might give you a sense of it either. That's censorship of the worst sort. It cuts off a dissenting point of view at a time of emergency in the gay community, a point of view that seeks to present a way out of the anal morass to gay men. Over the last 10 days, 365gay.com has presented two articles about anal and drugs: the first on circuit parties, and today's on high drug use among NYC's gay men. 365gay.com is glad to report the sensational problem, but won't let you hear about a sane and sensible solution. That is a betrayal of Gay Liberation, a betrayal of the gay male community, and a betrayal of a free press. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Bill Weintraub To Petrelis & Pasquarelli: I Won't Fight for You Dear friends and fellow activists, It has come to my attention that members of the AIDS denialist group from San Francisco have used my name in their letter of support. I don't have access to their list of supporters. If you do, would you repost this short note to them. Thank you Kate Sorensen ACT UP Philadelphia sorensen@critpath.org Mr. Petrelis and Mr. Pasquarelli: It's true that we live in a police state. It's true that we should have a right to free speech and we don't. No one should be jailed in this oppressive US system.
It was wrong that you were beat up by the police. Remember when you tried to beat the up the real ACT UP at the Vancouver International AIDS Conference and when you didn't succeed you poured blood on researchers? Again, I will fight for our right to demonstrate. I will fight for our right to free speech. I will fight this police state but I will not fight for you. Kate Sorensen |
Yesterday 365gay.com's "editorial board" put the kaboosh on a debate about frot and anal. I'd gotten going on their message board by deleting my posts saying that no links to other, no obscenity (such as cock2cock), and no defamation was allowed ( I never make ad hom attacks) here's my response posted under: "Who is Bill Weintraub and why is 365gay.com censoring him?"
Jailed activist David Pasquarelli 
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